Judge the Sky
by Swordsman422
Summary: AU. When John and Cameron cross paths with a T-950, the team is forced to infiltrate a US Navy base to stop him from continuing a mission that could lead to Judgment Day.
1. Author's notes and disclaimer

Judge the Sky

A Terminator: SCC FanFiction

Disclaimer: I do not own Sarah Connor Chronicles or the Terminator Saga. The following events are fictional. Any similarity to real events or people (save two) is totally coincidental. At least, they better be.

Author's Note: This fic is number two on my SCC list. That said, I'm getting used to the characters a little, and Cameron is damned hard to write for. Don't be too gentle in your reviews, but don't skewer me either unless I really, truly suck and have no style.

I began writing this story before Season 2 began, and as it continued, I integrated new ideas from S2 in it. That said, it should be looked at as kind of an AU story, since at some point I had to break with cannon to continue the story as I had envisioned it. I wrote it because I think the idea is pretty cool, and it crosses my favorite TV series with my favorite subject matter. I know the story is a little ludicrous to imagine, but hey, this is Terminator we're talking about. If I can say so, it's pretty well researched. But occasionally, as with all writers, I've had to fudge the facts a little to maintain dramatic effect. We can't all write with the veracity of Ward Carroll or Steven Coonts, much as we'd like to try. So before someone points it out, I know, I KNOW, during the dates of this writing VFA-32 did not use the F/A-18F block 26 with the AESA radar and advanced crew station. I know it's wrong that I have the WSOs occasionally wearing the Joint Helmet Mounted Cuing System, since they would only be doing this in an aircraft with the ACS and as of these dates, only VFA-106 and VFA-213's Super Hornets are so equipped. I'm almost certain that the described symbology of said JHMCS is incorrect because I have no real idea what it actually looks like, and considering that I can't afford one and they're illegal to own if I could, I don't think I'll know anytime soon. And please forgive me if I get some squadron radio callsigns, or the departure routes from Oceana NAS, or the layout of the combat information center of a _Ticonderoga_-class guided missile cruiser incorrect. I have my limits, ya know? Also, the characters of Jennifer Chung and Robby Crocker are based physically and personality-wise on real people I've known or worked with. Some of the quotes and dialogue are not made up. If either of those people is reading this, sorry, but you made yourselves stand out.

That all said, and bluntly, please do enjoy this, and I'd be thrilled to hear that you do. And if you don't, be so kind as to tell me why.


	2. Entanglement

Chapter 1: Entanglement

"Within all of us is a varying amount of space lint and star dust, the residue from our creation. Most are too busy to notice it, and it is stronger in some than others. It is strongest in those of us who fly and is responsible for an unconscious, subtle desire to slip into some wings and try for the elusive boundaries of our origin".

-K.O. Eckland, "Footprints On Clouds"

...

From the personal journal of Sarah Connor…

Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger once devised a paradoxical thought experiment to explain in layman's terms what he saw as the problems with the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, the science of how essentially objects move through time and space. In the experiment, a ludicrous situation involving a cat, a flask of poison, and a Geiger counter are placed inside a box that filters against quantum decoherence. Should the Geiger counter detect radiation, a mechanism will break the flask and release the toxin into the environment. The theories of Quantum mechanics suggest that after a period of time has passed, the cat will simultaneously exist inside the box as alive and dead. Schrödinger states that when we look into the box, we expect to see the cat either alive or dead and not both. He supposes that all of the possible outcomes will exist at once, and we will witness only one of these when we open the box to find out.

That is the problem with time travel. John, the Terminator, and I had blown up the Cyberdyne facility, had watched the creator of Skynet die in a flash of orange fire, had melted the objects that had lead to its creation. We then fled into the night, believing that we had stopped the creation of the killer computer and avoided the nightmare future it would bring upon mankind. But then Cameron came out of that future and she told us that Judgment Day had not been averted, that the peace we had worked so hard for was not to be. Essentially, we didn't have to open the box. The cat was already dead.

The future, it seemed, was unavoidable.

...

Beyond land, the ocean stretched from horizon to horizon, reaching far beyond the imagination, to the very edge of the Earth where it lost definition in the hazy seam that split it from the sky. A trillion-trillion particles of water rolled and lapped with the wind, the current, and the rolling, twisting gait of the planet through the cosmos. Here, in the midst of it, any wave was like any other wave, a peak among dimples in the surface. The waves were gentle and rolling, cut and defined like blue crystal, each with its own waves and dimples dotting the surface of it, each of those gentle, rolling, and cut like the same blue crystal. Occasionally, drops of spray would disturb the surface, sending out ripples that were quickly lost in the rolling sea.

Cutting through this world of water was a great mass; a titanic haze grey hull that churned the water to blue-white foam at its foot and sent the sea curling away from it. This hull rose from the water like a great grey building that could hurl itself through the ocean. Up it rose, cutwater, bow, and black deck rinsed in a cacophony of noise. Men in colored jerseys ran, stood, and gestured amongst the heavy grey machines that rolled about them, screaming loudly, or stood at the edge, drinking whatever was offered. All of this was watched from the green windows of a tall tower that sprang up from the starboard side of the great black deck, festooned with the whips of antennae and whirling radar dishes. On this tower in white was painted the number 75 large enough to read for miles and traced with white lights to show at night.

This was the deck of the _USS Harry S. Truman_, an aircraft carrier of the United States Navy. And she was on her way home.

On catapult number two, one of the forward pair, a heavily weathered and dirty F/A-18F Super Hornet, or a Rhino as it was nicknamed, was being directed by a handler into position. The man wore a yellow jersey and a hard cranial helmet with protective ear cups that contained the phones for his radio as well as attenuation to keep him from going deaf doing his work. He stood before the pointed nose of the grey strike fighter, pointing his left hand to his side and making a gesture with his right as if he were fanning the side of his head. Dutifully, the pilot turned the screeching jet to the right, to be met with another man wearing the same yellow jersey. As it did so, the first man pointed at the second and waved with his other hand, indicating that the second would now direct the plane. This one held both hands up and made a come-hither gesture, indicating the pilot should bring the fighter forward. The pilot goosed the throttle a little and the Super Hornet rolled forward, the nose-wheels crossing the newly retracted jet blast deflector. The twin wheels on the nose gear straddled perfectly the long groove in the flight deck that pointed off the bow. In position, the yellow-shirt held up both hands before his face as if framing a picture, fingers all together and at attention, thumbs creating the base of the frame: stop. The jet did as directed and his hands became a pair of fists: brake.

This particular aircraft bore the number 203 on the nose. The twin tails were decorated with a rampant lion wielding a broadsword and the tail code AC in grey only slightly darker that the surrounding paint and filth. Bold letters on the spine announced that this jet served with VFA-32.

The two crewmen in the aircraft, pilot and weapons systems operator, watched intently as their director put his right hand under his left elbow and dropped the left hand. This was the signal to drop their launch bar, the device on the nose gear that interfaced with the catapult shuttle. The pilot did so with the flick of a switch, and the bar dropped down onto the deck with a clang inaudible amidst the surrounding symphony of deafening confusion.

The shuttle rolled aft to meet the bar, and a green-shirted safety officer ran up and crouched beneath next to the gear, just ahead of the noisily sucking engine intakes. The pilot was signaled to unset the brakes and the green-shirt indicated with a wagging finger that the jet should roll forward slowly, which was relayed to the pilot via the yellow-shirt. The bar slid into the shuttle and the safety officer gave a thumbs-up and scooted away from the plane, back to the catwalk at the deck edge and to safety. The pilot was told once more to stop and set his brakes. Another green shirt ran up with a hold-back bar, a device that would hold the jet in place until the steam pressure in the catapult was greater than the strength of the hold-back bar's wooden connector. This would then break away, and the plane would be sent flying. The bar was linked to the back of the nose gear and to the flight deck, then this man, too, scooted away.

The yellow-shirt turned to face the catapult shooter in the plexiglass bubble and indicated to him with a raised right fist and sweeping left hand that he should set tension. Steam was put into the catapult, and the shuttle strained against the Super Hornet's launch bar. The cat officer waved a come-hither gesture to tell the shooter to raise the jet blast deflector, and momentarily the heavy slab rose from the deck behind the screaming fighter jet. The pilot was told to unset his brake again. The yellow-shirt's left hand cupped his right elbow and he pumped his raised right fist in a circle. As ordered, the pilot moved his control stick forward, back, right and left, then stepped on each rudder pedal to ensure that the surfaces were moving correctly and that there was no obstruction to his control. The ailerons, rudders, and elevators of the fighter all took their turns in motion. Satisfied, the yellow-shirt pointed skyward with his left hand, telling the pilot to go to full launch power. The nozzles of the twin General Electric F414 engines widened and vomited hot orange flame as their screeching turned to a deafening roar.

The pilot saluted and curled his fingers around the oh-shit handles beneath the HUD and in front of the throttle. The catapult officer returned the salute. Still holding his left hand up, he twisted his head to check the length of the catapult for obstructions, indicating with a pointed right hand that each direction was clear. The right hand went behind his back, and he leaned towards the bow, touched his left fist to the deck, and pointing off the front of the ship.

The catapult shooter saw this signal, checked his calculations of ship's speed, wind over the deck, aircraft weight, and steam pressure, calling out each to his assistant that he had ensured the gauges were at optimal. One bad number, one misstep, and the result would be disastrous. Too much power and he would risk ripping the nose gear from the jet. Too little, and the plane would not make it into the air. Satisfied that his math was right, his thumb hovered for a second over the fire button before he pressed it. Steam rushed into the twin cylinders below the deck pushing the heavy pistons attached to the shuttle and driving them forward. The F/A-18F surged down the catapult track, the wing passing over the catapult officer's head, to be hurled from the flight deck while beneath, the catapult piston slammed into the water brake with a thud that could startle the unprepared below decks. The ghost grey fighter rotated skyward and rose away, dipping a wing to port as it made way for other aircraft, leaving the water, the deck, and the cacophony of noise far behind. The deployment was almost over for this crew. They were headed home, back to loving wives, giggling children, and dry land.

...

The eye blinked just like any other, and the purpose was the same; moisturize the surface of the eye to protect it from damage. The eye was chocolate brown, like its twin on the opposite side of the petite nose. These brown eyes gazed out from beneath dark eyebrows and the wide forehead of what would appear to any other person to be a human girl or young woman of average height and slight build that could be anywhere in age from sixteen to twenty-six. The pursed pink lips and silky brown hair aided in making her quite attractive.

But appearances can be deceiving, for this was no human girl. Beneath the soft skin, brown eyes, silky hair was a skeleton forged of the metal alloy columbite-tantilite and the emotion hatred. The brain that told those pretty brown eyes to blink and flutter their long eyelashes was a computer chip programmed by another computer chip, which itself had been programmed by another computer chip in turn. Her metal bones were moved by a combination of cloned biological muscle and servos with titanium gearing. She was made to fit in, disappear amidst humans, seek out a target, and kill. Beneath the fully functional biological exterior, she was a machine made for a lethal purpose. Perhaps the only give-aways that she was a machine and not a human was her strange mannerisms, dismally poor social skills, and the fact that her cloned biological eyes, which blinked like any other and for the same purpose, were vapid and empty, lacking the life and sparkle of their vibrant human counterparts.

These eyes belonged to Cameron Phillips, and were currently focused with great intent on a row of refrigerated drinks at a gas station in Lemoore, California just off highway 41. As a machine, Cameron saw the world through a superimposed Heads-Up Display, which constantly gave her information about the environment around her as well as visual cues as to her own status. Currently, the HUD was urging her in big, bold red letters that she needed to hydrate and that she should obtain and consume water. This water she would use to cool her hydrogen power cell and provide appropriate moisture needed to keep her biological components functioning. The reason she needed water was that she had expended so much that day. The temperature had risen in excess of a hundred degrees Fahrenheit on this mid-July California summer day, and a lot of her water bunkerage had been expended in keeping her body down to the ninety-eight-point-six that coincidentally was her ideal operating temperature. She did this in exactly the same fashion as the humans she was intended to replicate; sweating through pores in her smooth biological skin covering until it ran in rivulets down her face and back and from beneath her underarms.

Her computer brain could readily tell her what she needed, but it could not tell her what brand she should buy. She could not decide between Evian, Deer Park, Aquafina, or any of the other dozen brands. And while her database contained facts indicating that the water brands had to be different enough to pass patents there was no data to indicate which might accomplish the job best. Another option she was offered was a sports drink, something with electrolytes to enhance moisture retention, but she was in no real hurry and so no decision had been forthcoming since she had arrived in front of the drinks some forty-seven point six-eight-five seconds ago.

"Are you gonna buy something or are you gonna just stare at them?" Her audio processor indicated that this voice belonged to John Connor and that he was approaching from the rear. Her HUD also chose to remind her in small lettering that his protection was her primary mission.

"I don't know what to get," she stated, "so many brands. It's so inefficient." She watched John open one of the doors and pull out a soda. This one was a Pepsi, and it was in a glass bottle. "That won't help rehydrate you," she warned him, "carbonated drinks can actually exacerbate dehydration and…"

"I know," John replied with a smirk, "but it tastes good."

Taste did not matter to Cameron. She could detect it, but could not like or dislike it. "You should get water. Or perhaps Powerade. It has electrolytes."

"What plants crave, huh?" John joked. He snickered at the reference, but stopped when he saw Cameron tilt her head, confused, her brown eyes wide and empty, hungry for knowledge. John leaned in closer to her, "you should laugh more," he whispered, "the clerk will get suspicious."

The female machine protested, "but I don't think it's funny." Though she could not experience them, Cameron could detect emotions. She saw it in John's face that she had him there. It often bothered him, she knew, that she looked so human and occasionally acted as such, but was in fact not. Still, he treated her as best he could, and in her own way, she appreciated that. She noted that perhaps she should actually follow his advice. That is, if she could actually get the joke.

It was good, she noted, that he was joking. Their mission for the day had been a complete bust. John and Cameron had traveled to Fresno to a technology fair hoping to find out if any of the new AI programs or robotics exhibits showed signs of potentially developing into a Skynet project. While the news had been a fortunate no, Cameron had detected a frustration from John. While Cameron had counted the mission as a success, John had expressed his opinion that the whole trip had been a stupid waste of time, even if it _did_ get him out of the house away from his overprotective mother and deranged, temporally displaced uncle.

The mission had been a sign that Sarah, John's mother, had begun to trust them enough to work on their own. The two of them could be assigned tasks and could successfully carry them out without what John referred to as "adult supervision." Sarah's trust had developed both out of a respect for her son's desire to take a more active role in shaping his future as well as a greater acceptance of Cameron's protective mission. The woman was satisfied that her son's little terminator friend was not going to "go off the reservation" and kill him at some opportune moment.

Derek still did not truly trust Cameron, but his reasons were far more grounded in something other than just sheer hatred. He had also come to appreciate her mission and presence, even assigning her his own small tasks, understanding that giving a machine that by programming craved assignments was a sort of compliment. Still, he worried that she might malfunction and just start killing people, John included. Older terminator models had been seen to go bad occasionally and just pick up a weapon and begin spraying an area down with bullets or ionized plasma. Derek had nearly lost his life to one of these deranged machines, and had it not been for Cameron's timely intervention, he would have met his fate at its hands.

This firmly in mind, he still protested loudly whenever Sarah wanted to send the boy and Cameron out alone, and he had protested quite loudly on this occasion. But Sarah had stood firm in her opinion that the two of them could handle it. They would need Cameron's "professional" abilities at spotting potential Skynet-related projects and John needed to get out of the house for a while anyway because he was developing a serious case of cabin fever that summer, with few of his fiends in town (not that Sarah would let him go out and party) and absolutely zero in terms of mission leads. "_Vaya con Dios_" had been Sarah's exact words as she sent them away for the day, with Derek making his usual threats about throwing Cameron into a some variety of large industrial machinery if anything were to happen to John.

The mission had gone well in that there was no Skynet history to be found there, and Cameron had successfully not malfunctioned and killed John and a dozen other people in the process. They went, they learned, John was still alive and neither of them were fugitives. Mission accomplished. Still, John was rather grumpy at its conclusion.

Perhaps Cameron should have laughed at the joke, even if plants did not crave electrolytes in the slightest.

Her companion pushed by her on his way to the counter. "Get the Evian," he told her. Problem solved, she opened the appropriate door and pulled out a bottle of the directed product. She turned to follow John when the jingle-bells above the door tinkled. It was another customer entering the store. Automatically, she turned to look at this person as he entered, scanning for threats as always.

It was a man that entered, about six-feet-two-inches tall. He had broad shoulders, and close-cropped brown hair. He was wearing a CWU-36, a summer-weight jacket made of green Nomex fabric issued to US Navy aviators. There were few patches on it, but the right shoulder bore a patch indicating that he flew the F/A-18C, a legacy model of the F/A-18 Hornet strike fighter. Another patch below that indicated that he had surpassed two thousand hours in the aircraft. On the right breast was the blue and orange patch of VFA-94, the Shrikes. Cameron's memory reminded her that VFA-94 operated the F/A-18C as of this date and that they were stationed at Naval Air Station Lemoore, just a few miles from here. What alerted her that something might be wrong with this man was the look of his eyes. They were like cold ice, and they were blank and vapid. His mouth turned mechanically into a smile as he approached the counter. On a hunch, she flipped to infra-red and saw that he was exuding an unusual quantity of heat from the crown of his head and spine.

Reacting quickly, she made for John, gripped him by the arm and spun him around, turning his back to the aviator. She gripped his head between her hands and pulled his face close to hers, placing a passionate kiss on his lips. At first, the teenaged boy tried to pull away, but he soon allowed himself to fall into the kiss. Whether or not he understood why she was kissing him, Cameron could not determine, but that did not matter at this point.

"Lieutenant-Commander Wiley," the clerk greeted, "how are you?"

"I'm very well, Timmy, how's your mom?"

"She's doing okay. The doctor said she'll need to have some screws in her knee, but she should be on her feet again in a few weeks."

"That's awful what happened to her. I'm really sorry about that."

"Thanks."

"Did they find the guy who did it?"

"No," the clerk replied, "it happened so fast, and she couldn't remember a tag number. She's kinda lucky to be alive."

"Yes, very fortunate. I'll have thirty-dollars in gas. I need to be back on base here in a few."

"Okay. Anything exciting going on?"

"Not really. I am getting transferred though."

"Really? Where?"

"VFA-83, the Rampagers."

"I haven't heard of them. Where are they out of?"

"Oceana Naval Air Station. I'm moving to the Atlantic Fleet it looks like."

"When's that?"

"Just a few days."

"Are they making you go?"

"No. My family is all back East. There was a position open so I asked."

At this point, Cameron began ignoring the rest of the conversation. She began hunting down references, searching for Lieutenant Commander Wiley, VFA-83, and the F/A-18C in her database. Locating the references took some time, but she noted them for later. The door chimes tinkled again, indicating he had gone, and she released John from the kiss and stepped away. He was breathing heavily, and his body surface temperature had increased by half-a-degree. His heart-rate had also increased by twenty percent. "What the fuck was that?" he breathed, now too stunned to even remember what he was doing. His hand reached up to his lips, and something lit off in his eyes, as if his mind had an answer to something he had wondered for a while.

"We should pay now," she said matter-of-factly and moved past him. They did so and went outside. The pilot had his back to them, fortunately, and so they were able to get to their parked car without sneaking and thus drawing attention to themselves. Cameron took the driver's seat. John sat shotgun.

"So," he asked, "who were we hiding from?" So he had known. That should not be unexpected. John was an intelligent person.

"Lieutenant Commander Brian E. Wiley," Cameron replied, "he's a terminator. A 950 series. He's important."

...

"How?" Sarah asked from her place on the couch. She had waited all day for them to return, pacing nervously or trying to find something, _anything_, to do to fill up her time until her son returned safely. The call they had made from the tech fair had done a lot to quell her fears, but now they were back on the road, and she began to become nervous again. The mothering instinct in her told her that John was in danger whenever she was not in proximity and the human in her was terrified of what that meant. But she could trust them, they would be fine. She kept telling herself these things, and eventually the hours had passed away.

It was just after midnight when Cameron's car had pulled into the garage and the two kids, one biological and the other cybernetic, had come running in with the news. John had been excited in that at-last-something-to-do kind of way, telling her in kind of a run-on sentence as Sarah had buried him with a hug. Cameron had been her usual matter-of-fact way, saying that they needed to sit down and talk, which would require they wake Derek, who had fallen prostrate on the couch and was snoring loudly. He had been pleased to see the boy well and the machine still functioning within acceptable parameters, having once more succeeded in not going bad and killing people.

"We have work," Sarah had told him.

"Yeah?" he had let a small smile begin to escape, but dropped it when he saw her face, "what?" And they had gathered to hear it. Sarah had just posed her question as to how this Wiley person was important enough to pay attention to.

Cameron began her explanation. "August fourth, two-thousand eight, US Navy Lieutenant-Commander Brian Wiley fired an AiM-9M Sidewinder missile at a Russian Tupolev Tu-95 patrol bomber over the Atlantic ocean that was en-route to overfly the USS _Dwight Eisenhower_. The weapon struck the Bear in the fuselage and exploded, killing the pilot, navigator, and bombardier. The co-pilot survived and bailed out. Wiley, who was serving with Strike Fighter Squadron Eighty-Three, based at Naval Air Station Oceana, had been participating in the Atlantic Coast Missile Exercise when the attack occurred. He attacked and shot down his wingman, Lieutenant J.G. Justin Patterson before proceeding to intercept the Russian aircraft. He joined up and flew alongside for several minutes within view of the crew before falling back and engaging. Wiley disappeared along with his aircraft following the attack. Wreckage of the Hornet was found later floating in the sea, but Wiley was never seen again.

"The shoot-down caused dramatically increased tensions between the United States and Russia. The US could not find Wiley to prosecute him, and thus was not able prove that he had acted alone and not under orders. Russia did not believe these claims, and overflights of US carrier groups by Russian long-range patrol craft occurred with increased regularity. These renewed tensions will prompt an arms race similar to the Cold War of the previous century and culminate with the American Congress giving the go-ahead and authorizing funding for an automated integrated defense network; Skynet. You know the rest." Cameron ended, and allowed a moment or two for the information to sink in.

"Shit…" Derek breathed. He paused heavily, his eyes moving about the floor. "Shit…" again. He looked up at her. "You mean this guy does this thing and causes… all of it?"

Cameron shook her head, "no. But he is part of the process. A big part."

"We gotta stop him." John said what they all must have been thinking.

"How, John?" Sarah asked, and then looked at Cameron, "this is crazy. He's in the Navy. Didn't he have to pass physicals in order to fly? How could they not know he was a terminator?"

"He's a T-950." The cyborg stated.

The designation did nothing to aide Sarah in her effort to understand. As far as she knew, all of the Terminators were the same in some form or fashion and wouldn't be able to pass as humans in front of trained doctors. "And how is that different from any other type we've faced?"

"That's one of the sick things," Derek chuckled, "a T-950 isn't like all the others. It's not a combat chassis with a biological jacket. It's a cloned human being with a network of Cybernetic implants. They feel emotions, make friends, need to eat to stay alive. They act and feel and do exactly what people do because that's basically what they are. There was no way for us to spot 'em. Even the dogs like 'em because they smell like us and not like metal. Only way to pick one out is to have a machine look one over."

"How do you tell, then?"

Cameron answered this time, "there is a neural web implanted on the brain and connected to the spine. The web contains the primary programming and secondary control systems. It puts out a certain amount of heat and the crown of the head and spine are point-six-seven degrees warmer than the rest of the body. It's visible in the infrared, though a human wouldn't know what to spot."

"He's a cloned human? So we can just walk up and shoot this guy?" John asked.

"It's not that simple." Derek told him.

Cameron continued. "The T-950's neural net can make use of the biological body even when the biological brain is rendered inoperable. The neural net is a back-up, and it will continue to attempt to accomplish its mission. Also, T-950s are still stronger than even an athletically inclined human. Physical combat with one could prove dangerous. They cannot be knocked out because the implants will take over. You have to treat a T-950 with the same caution as a T-888."

"So, what can we do?" John asked.

"Nothing," Sarah responded her head down.

"Why not?" her son vaulted from the couch.

Cameron's HUD indicated that this would be a good time to protest, and so she did. "If congress and the DOD don't allocate funds, Skynet's development may be delayed, or may not even occur at all. The go ahead is given because of the tensions generated from this attack. We have an opportunity to at least delay Skynet's development if not stop it altogether. It's like you always said: if Skynet's interested, so are we. It happens in fifteen days. If we're going to do something, we have to do it now."

Derek scratched his head, "I'm with the metal. We gotta do something. We can't just let this go by."

"Do something like what?"

Cameron stepped forward. "Infiltrate NAS Oceana. Sabotage his plans. Terminate him."

"It's too risky. It's a military base. What are we gonna do? Drive through the gate? 'Yes, hi, we're here to stop a robot that you think is a pilot from starting the snowball that kills the world. I know that three of us are wanted fugitives and one of us is a teenaged boy, but you can trust us. I'm not crazy at all. Can we come in?' Right, Cameron."

"We can find a way," Cameron said, "there is always a way."

"No," Sarah said. Everyone was looking at her, staring intently. Even Cameron's normally lifeless eyes were boring into her. "_No!_" she said more emphatically. And she meant it. She did… really…

God damn it.

"Okay, fine," she conceded, "how are we gonna do it?"

"We will need to be able to infiltrate NAS Oceana. To do that, we'll need to pose as Navy personnel. Two of us should do that. The other two should act as support and not be on the base if possible. We will have to create fake identification by hacking into Navy Bureau of Personnel."

Sarah swallowed hard and nodded, "Derek and I should do that. Act as the military people."

"No," the cyborg shook her head, "John and I. We're younger. It would be easier for us to infiltrate given the average age of the personnel on base and the knowledge and training they possess. You and Derek would have to pass for older people with more experience, and we cannot give you that in a suitable time frame."

"So who are you going to become, then?" Derek asked, having seen Sarah ready to protest her son being involved in this risky task.

"I haven't determined the specifics yet," she replied, "we'll have to see what we can find. We'll start working on it tomorrow."

"Well," John announced after a pregnant pause, "in that case, I'm going to bed."

"Yeah," Derek agreed, "me too." And he shooed them off the couch. John raced for his bedroom, while Sarah and Cameron wandered into the kitchen.

"Cameron," Sarah leaned against the island, her arms folded. The cyborg girl turned about to face the woman. "Are you sure this thing didn't see John?"

"Yes."

"How do you know?"

"I was kissing him at the time," was the matter-of-fact reply.

Sarah balked, "kissing… _kissing _my son?"

"Yes. I had to think quickly and hide his face and mine without drawing too much attention to us. It seemed like the right thing to do."

Sarah nodded at that, "the right thing to do. Well, just make sure his life isn't in _that_ kind of danger again." And she stalked off to bed, leaving the terminator to patrol the house.


	3. Hitting the Road

Chapter 2: Hitting the Road

"The Wright Brothers created the single greatest cultural force since the invention of writing. The airplane became the first World Wide Web, bringing people, languages, ideas, and values together."

-Bill Gates

...

"Okay, I'm ready." John said. He was sitting at his desk, his computers humming quietly. It was morning, and he felt better after a good nights sleep. He had started on Cameron's project the moment he had awakened, and so was still dressed in his shorts and a smelly t-shirt. "That was far too easy. BuPers really should upgrade their firewalls." Cameron was sitting quietly on his bed, absorbing the contents of a _Vogue_. Her brown eyes were wide as she sponged up all of the knowledge that might help her infiltrate human society of this time period, and her bovine expression amused John. He was tempted to offer her some chewing gum just to watch her chew it with that expression, just to reinforce the cow image. And maybe ask her to moo once… He tried very hard to swallow a chuckle and failed.

Cameron looked up from the magazine and stood up, moving over near to him. "The DOD spends its money mainly on the important stuff. Protecting the personal information of servicemen and women is a relatively low priority compared to protecting classified materials such as the design or deployment of nuclear weapons." She leaned over his shoulder to peer at the screen. What she saw was a vast list of names, each of them apparently a link to a personnel file. "See what you can find for personnel currently assigned to StrikeFitRon Eighty-Three."

John typed in a command, and the list of names narrowed to one hundred ninety-two; thirty-three officers and one-hundred fifty-nine enlisted. Among the names was LCDR WILEY, Brian Edward. John clicked on his name.

An image of the man they had seen at the gas station appeared. He was smiling in that way a person smiles when they want a photograph to be finished, the kind one might find on a drivers license, a badge, or a military ID card. "It shows that he's just transferring in and should be reporting for duty in two days. Looks like they're making him the squadron training officer. What's that?"

"He's the officer responsible for training the pilots in the squadron on air tactics and weapons employment. It usually means that he's the best pilot in the squadron in those regards. Look at this." She pointed to the screen.

"NFWS graduate. What's that?"

"Navy Fighter Weapons School. Topgun. It's an advanced training program for air combat maneuvering. He's attended."

"So we know that he's a damn good pilot, then."

"He's a machine. That's to be expected. It's his mission."

Was she bragging? "Right."

"No new transfers expected for VFA-83," the cyborg almost sounded disappointed.

"What are you looking for, exactly?" John asked.

"I calculated the odds of us showing up on base without much notice won't work. One of us, sure. But two has a high likelihood of arousing suspicion. Look at transferees expected to arrive at Oceana." The list that garnered was in excess of three-hundred.

"Whoa, wait," John stuttered, "you're looking to replace somebody? We'd have to kill them. There's no way."

Cameron ignored him. "VFA-83 is attached to Carrier Air Wing Seven. Check for any transfers into that." This list was shorter. Fifteen. "Two are going to VFA-143, three to VFA-103. And he's going to VFA-83. No one new to VFA-131. Those are the only squadrons in the air wing based at Oceana. The other squadrons are at NAS Jacksonville in Florida. Too few are transferring in to get us into the same wing without suspicion. Try the broader search again." John did so, and the larger list came up. Cameron reached for the mouse and scrolled down. Her HUD highlighted a name, and she zoomed in on it.

LTJG PARKER, Erin Elizabeth.

She tilted her head curiously, and clicked it, searching the file. The picture was of a young woman of twenty-six, with brown eyes and dark brown hair. Her face was pale and round, but she had a pretty smile. "She's with Navy Intelligence. Apparently she's being assigned as a squadron intelligence officer for Strike Fighter Squadron Thirty-Two, the Swordsmen, with CVW-3. She's expected to be on base in six days. Brown hair, brown eyes, five-foot-seven and weighing in at a hundred-thirty-eight pounds. Her vital statistics closely match mine. Though I'm heavier and a little taller." She searched her own library for why Lieutenant Junior Grade Parker's name had drawn her attention.

"How much heavier?" John asked with a smirk on his face.

"That's not a very polite question to ask someone," Cameron's admonishment was deadpan. The name came up. "Lieutenant Parker was mentioned in the Navy news. She was supposed to report to VFA-32 on July twenty-eight, but did not report as ordered. Two weeks later, she was identified as Jane Doe number forty-one in a Lincoln, Nebraska hospital as the victim of a hit-and-run driver. She had taken a few days leave during her transfer and had been driving from NAS Whidbey Island for a surprise visit to her parents, who live in Topeka, Kansas on her way to Oceana Virginia. She was found on the side of the road in her car unconscious and injured near evening on the twenty-fourth. Her car had suffered impact damage to the driver's side. She would survive and be in rehab for three months, finally joining VFA-32 for their next deployment."

She stood up straight, "We have to leave. By tomorrow night."

"In order to do what?"

"Be the hit-and-run driver."

...

Cameron's plan was simple, really. She and John would drive to NAS Oceana, passing through Nebraska on the way and ensuring that Erin Parker never made the journey. Cameron would then assume her identity. Their research had revealed her old address in Oak Harbor, Washington and her new one in Virginia Beach, Virginia. They got a license plate assigned to the old address, and from that a make, model, year, and color of automobile. It was a white '03 Pontiac Grand Am. The reports suggested that she had been on the side of the road for at least two hours. They had an automobile, a location, and a target time.

And no one would have to die. History would only have to change a little. Lieutenant Junior Grade Erin Parker was going to report for duty as ordered.

Cameron would not be making her infiltration alone. John would be accompanying her. She would need him close by. They decided that he would insert himself into the Bureau mainframe as a Petty Officer Third Class, Airman. He would be an Aircrew Survival Equipmentman assigned to the squadron safety and maintenance unit that was responsible for testing and maintaining flight gear for the aviators and running the paraloft where the aviators stowed it. This assignment would keep him close to Cameron, and would give him duties he could adequately perform without advanced training. John already knew everything else a sailor would be required to know out of basic training, minus perhaps the Navy's rather labyrinthine ratings system, but she could train him on that. His story would be that his transfer paperwork and detailing orders had been misplaced. With a little work, she could make him pass for a young-looking twenty-two, and a quick trip to the Army-Navy surplus store would render suitable uniforms for him to wear that would only need a little modification. Cameron would need similarly appropriate apparel in her role as a junior officer, and would accompany him in this task with her knowledge.

That afternoon, John, Cameron, and Sarah walked into Martin's Military Surplus in search of uniforms. The store was located in what once was a small freight warehouse, and lacked air conditioning. Here, they could find everything from officially issued uniforms and insignia, to patches and flags, to t-shirts and bumper-stickers proclaiming one's affinity for military branches, weapons systems, and firearms or hatred of any institution that might remove the freedoms to wield those firearms.

"Okay," Sarah gestured grandly to the store, "what do you need?"

Cameron pondered for a moment, then replied "for myself I will need one set of service dress blues, one set of service dress whites, two sets of service whites, two sets of service khakis and three sets of working khakis. I will also need a pair of PT uniforms. John will need three sets of utility dungarees, two sets of working coveralls, two sets apiece of service dress blues and service dress whites, summer whites, and it's recommended that he get several pairs of BDU trousers and US Navy PT uniforms. I am not certain whether new working uniforms had been instated by VFA-32 at this point, but those will be hard to find because they are so new and they are yet to be service-wide."

"This sounds expensive," Sarah grimaced.

"Yes," Cameron said, "this sounds expensive."

The three of them spent an hour at the store and they found everything they needed in all the sizes they needed. Sarah and her wallet were both quite shocked to discover that rank badges, shoulder boards, ribbons, collar devices, iron-ons, cuff stripes, patches, tabs, and hat devices were all separate articles. Still Cameron required exacting standards, because the Navy would require the same exacting standards and she did not want to arouse suspicion. Everything from jackets and blouses to shoes, hats, and sunglasses had to be appropriate and current issue.

Navy service personnel were required to wear their medal and citation ribbons on certain uniforms. According to her service jacket, Erin Parker had been in for just over four years and had been awarded the Defense Meritorious Service Medal, the Meritorious Service Medal with gold star for a subsequent award, Joint Service Achievement Medal, Navy Unit Commendation with a bronze star, and Overseas Service ribbon. Cameron found it appropriate that John's alias would have been awarded the Good Conduct Medal, the Navy Meritorious Unit Commendation, and Navy E Medal. There would be nothing especially distinguished about him, as he needed to be as unpresupposing as possible.

This they piled into a steel shopping cart, with the smaller items going into a basket that Cameron carried. It took them an hour to compile the necessary gear and wheel it up to the cashier's counter; an old ammo crate with a register on top.

The clerk, a girl with green streaks dyed into her blonde hair, made a double-take at the quantity of items they were buying. "Wow, you guys are getting a lot of stuff!"

Sarah nodded wryly, "I know. I'm already worried about how much it's gonna cost me."

"What are you doing with it?" the girl asked as she began scanning items.

"We're putting on a production of Aaron Sorkin's _A Few Good Men_," Cameron told her, "for a summer drama camp."

"Cool," the girl replied. The items were soon tallied, and they paid the fifteen hundred dollar bill with Sarah Baum's Visa. Cash would have raised too much suspicion, and checks were not accepted here.

As they trucked the items out to the Jeep, Sarah turned to Cameron. "_A Few Good Men_?"

"I saw the movie on TV a few nights ago and looked it up. It was fresh in my memory and readily explained why we needed all of these uniforms."

"When do you find time to do all of this stuff?"

"I don't sleep."

"Right."

...

That night, Cameron sat down with John and taught him everything he needed to know that would get him through the mission; ratings and ranks, how to distinguish, what to call someone, the color-coded specialty stripes of the enlisted and the collar and shoulder devices of all of the various branches. She taught him about the star that indicated a line officer, or the mill rinde of the JAG corps. She taught him about the dolphins of a submariner, the SEAL's trident, the water wings of a surface warfare specialist, the one-anchor wings of a pilot and the two-anchor pair of a Navy Flight Officer.

With great care she showed him how and when to wear each of his uniforms, how to launder them, what order and where to wear his ribbons and how to keep them straight by pinning them to a piece of cardboard beneath his shirt. Together they ironed-on the sleeve insignia to his utilities, sewed it onto the sleeves of his service blouses, or pinned it to collars and caps. When they were finished, each piece of appropriate clothing was decorated with the spread eagle, crossed anchors, and single chevron of an E-4, a Petty Officer Third Class. The left chest of each appropriate uniform was decorated with the winged parachute of an ASE.

Because it was beyond Cameron's knowledge base, they surfed the internet and discovered, through various collectors' websites, the procedures for inspecting flight gear. John studied hard the procedures for inspecting and assembling oxygen masks like the legacy MBU-14 and the newer MBU-24. He learned how to cover a helmet with white 3M reflective tape per regulation, how to fit it to use the ANVIS night-vision system, how to turn a raw shell, liner, edgeroll, and a handful of screws into a fully functional flight-ready unit. He found out how to inspect, pack, and test the LPU-33 life preserver, how to attach it to the CMU-33 survival vest. He learned about chest-mounted regulators, REDAR hoses, Combat Edge and enhanced anti-G systems, and how to inspect, repair, and operate all of it.

Beyond wearable air crew survival equipment, John also learned the other aspects of the duties required of an Aircew Survival Equipmentman. He discovered the process of weighing and refilling aircraft fire bottles, cleaning, inspecting, and packing seat pan survival gear, and applying tamper dots to all screws and fittings. He tackled the maintenance of cartridge activated devices, studied up on how to inspect, install, and dispose of them safely. He memorized the processes for troubleshooting, purging, and cleaning the Onboard Oxygen Generation System used in the F/A-18F Super Hornet, and how to perform function checks, and adjust OBOGS interface regulators. He became capable on the methods of maintaining, inspecting, manufacturing, and packing parachutes and would learn up to FAA compliance, at least in practice if not on certified paper. John found himself surprised to discover that an airman with a PR rating was required to be able to operate and maintain a sewing machine, knowing how to sew parachute panels, design and lay out patterns, cut material, sew patches, and repair seams, rips, snags, and tears. As a PO3, John would also need to be competent enough to draft test forms, perform in-process quality assurance, schedule inspections, and review maintenance data. It was a lot to learn, but John was a fast learner, especially when he had to be, and so after several hours of study, he felt that he could perform all of these tasks adequately so long as he studied on the drive.

"It's amazing that people actually collect this stuff," John said as he read through the process of installing a 600-knot visor system on an HGU-68/P helmet, his voice a mix of admiration that humans will collect anything and the geekiness of some people.

"Good for us that they do." Cameron replied. She was standing in front of his mirror in the white blouse and knee-length skirt of service whites. The black boards on her shoulders bore the single full stripe and single half stripe of a Lieutenant Junior Grade. Her left breast was dappled with the row and a half of ribbons that had been awarded to Erin Parker, in exactly the right order. Her brown hair was twisted up in a bun, and her head was covered with a Combination Cap, White, and as per Article 3501.9b of US Navy Uniform Regulations was worn squarely on the head, with bottom edge parallel to and one and a half inches above the eyebrows. She wore flesh-toned hose over her legs, per regulation 3501.29, and the appropriate white dress pumps were on her feet, as per regulation 3501.54. "How do I look?"

John's tongue poked into his left cheek as he looked her over. He nodded approvingly, smiled, and said "you look like you belong," which, to a machine who was programmed to infiltrate and fit in, was a great compliment.

There was perhaps a ghost of a smile on her face when she said "thank you" in that soft way that she said it, almost as if she took joy from the acknowledgement that she had done well.

...

"We'll be following behind you in a couple of days." Sarah Connor told her son, "Derek and I should be half-way there by the time you arrive. Are you sure you two are totally prepared?"

The question had been directed at John, but it was Cameron who answered, "yes. We are ready. I'll be living in Lieutenant Parker's apartment that she already has leased, and I will ensure John is not too far away. I will be taking all of Parker's identification; drivers license, badge, ID card, and replace her picture with mine. Using these as a reference, I can then forge John's IDs. We'll write up his personnel file on the way and insert it into the BuPers database when we arrive."

"There's a lot of hacking for you to do. Are you sure you can take care of it all?" Sarah asked.

John sighed, "yes, mom. We can take care of it. No big deal. It's not like hacking into Internal Revenue or the FBI."

Cameron looked at him, "Cromartie put himself in the FBI's database as an agent and was able to operate for a while without suspicion. Surely John can manage a week."

Derek piped up, "what if Wiley sees him?"

"Wiley won't see him," the cyborg girl responded with just a hint of confidence.

"How can you be so sure?"

"He's in a different squadron, in a different air wing," Cameron told him, "all of the Super Hornet squadrons, VFA-32 included, are using the same hangers they used when they were flying the F-14 Tomcat. It's in a separate area of the base. John will be indoors most of the time while performing his duties. The possibility of Wiley seeing him is very remote."

Sarah seemed satisfied with that answer, and Derek didn't push the issue. The woman stepped forward and hugged her son. "You be safe out there. You hear me? Safe."

"No one is ever safe," Cameron said. The comment earned her a glare from Sarah, and the terminator's eyes went wide in confusion. "What?"

Sarah sighed, "you know what I mean."

"I will, mom." And he was buried in a hug again. She released him, gave him a quick look-over and searched his face for any hint of uncertainty. There was none. His gaze was as intense as ever. He was ready to do this thing. He wanted to. He knew how important it was. "Bye," she said, the "I love you" left unspoken.

"Bye," he said, and hoisted his bag, turning for the car.

Sarah gripped Cameron's arm as the machine turned to follow. Her gaze was stern and hard. "You watch him out there. Like a hawk."

"I will," Cameron's voice carried a hint of irritation that Sarah might suggest otherwise.

"You watch him like I would watch him."

The terminator's eyes became equally as intense, "better, actually."

"Hey," Derek called to her, "if anything happens to him…" he pointed at her, allowing her electronic imagination to take over and fill in the blanks; wood chipper, conveyor press, molten steel… Her brown eyes, still burning for Sarah, turned to meet his. She turned about, sending her hair flying behind her, and stalked for the car.

...

Ah! Asterisks now separate sections! Go me. I'm a fast learner. Just for you readers out there, I'm still getting used to the publishing side of this stuff, so forgive if there are lessons I need to learn. I'm 8 chapters deep in this one and will probably try to post a chapter a week until I'm caught up. For now, forgive the idiotic manner in which the previous chapter was posted.


	4. Crossing the Line

I appreciate the feedback I've already been given. Thank you very much. You make me feel so welcome here.

To answer some questions, no, I was not in any branch of military service, but I was exposed to naval aviation for a prolonged period of my life through family. It took still many years of research still to get to my knowledge level. Fanfic writing is warm-up for me, practice for the day when I will pen my own stories, and they will be primarily based on this research.

I know about my mistake with the T-950/I-950 thing. The way I figure it is that neither has appeared in filmed continuity, and so while Wiley's model is based on the I-950, I will continue to use the T-series designator. But thank you for pointing that out.

The persistence of techno-babble is primarily part of my characterization of Cameron, from whose perspective most of the story takes place. Also, some of it will become important later at a time where I will definitely lose pace discussing it. The whole deal with the uniform regs, though, that was essentially her looking herself in the mirror.

At any rate, I know I said once a week I'll post. But I'm a sucker for rewarding positive feedback. Cookie for anyone who get's the joke about Topeka.

...

Chapter 3: Crossing the Line

"The modern airplane creates a new geographical dimension. A navigable ocean of air blankets the whole surface of the globe. There are no distant places any longer: the world is small and the world is one."

-Wendell Willkie

They didn't stop, except for gas, food, and bathroom. They traded places in six-hour shifts. John spent a lot of his time in the passenger seat studying the required technical skills necessary to become a rated Parachute Rigger, reading through downloaded NATOPS PDAs and maintenance articles. When he wasn't studying, he slept; both to rest and to help the time pass more quickly. Sleep came easily to John, especially in a moving car. When he was in traveling mode, he could fall asleep almost on command and become fully awake again in seconds. It was so unlike John at home, the troglodyte sleeper who could maintain his peaceful state during a firefight and when roused by his alarm clock in the morning was just as likely to grumble angrily, reach out with a fist, and smash the offending little machine before rolling over and returning to sleep.

If Cameron were capable of being amazed at this transition, she would be. Currently, it was late afternoon and they were closing on Lincoln, Nebraska from the West on Interstate 80, where they would join up on Highway 77 heading South for Topeka. 77 was the road that Parker had been found alongside… would be found alongside, later this evening. They had six hours before they had to make their move, and so Cameron planned that they would not use the silver sedan to make the hit. She would have to acquire something bigger, borrowing perhaps a van or truck, to accomplish the deed. Lieutenant Parker showing up with a scraped car would be suspicious…

John woke up, his eyes opening and his head rising away from the window pane. There was no sign at all that he had been sleeping. He looked over at Cameron and smiled a little. "Heya."

"Hi," Cameron allowed her eyes to come off the road momentarily to look at him, "sleep well?"

"Like a baby. The seats in this car are so comfortable. Better than sleeping in your old truck."

"Yes, the seats are quite soft."

"Do you want me to take over?"

"Not yet. I will need you to once we reach Lincoln. We will need to acquire a second vehicle."

"Steal another car? Why?" John was confused. Cameron told him, and it did in fact make sense.

"We need to make sure that she doesn't die in the impact," the terminator explained, "it is likely that extra measures will be necessary to ensure that Lieutenant Parker remains comatose for the duration of our mission. Should she awaken in the hospital before the task is complete, then she will be able to identify herself and we will be discovered. There will then be no way we can prevent Wiley from carrying out his assignment."

"Right," John nodded, "question."

"Yes?"

"If we can't insert too many of us into the Navy personnel database without suspicion, especially in a time period like this, how is it possible that Wiley managed to get in, as a pilot no less, and go undetected?"

"950 terminators are cloned humans. They grow and age. He was probably sent back as in his teenaged years and preceded from there. Did you notice that on his file that it said that he graduated with a mathematics degree from NYU? He didn't just show up one day, infiltrate the Navy, and make up his history. In order to get where he is, he had to invest a lot of time and effort. I found it very easy to infiltrate the system here with a little hard work. You should be frightened how simple it is to create a fake identity. Hack into the Social Security database and insert a number. As long as you have that, you can get anything; driver's license, credit cards, a whole new life. With a legal mode if identification, you can insert yourself into an insurance company and claim you lost everything in a house fire. It's easy. But then you have to build from there. Wiley couldn't just show up and claim to be a pilot. He had to start at the basics."

"That's what we're doing isn't it? Showing up and claiming to be sailors?"

"It's different. I'm replacing someone real. And you don't require years of specialized training amongst a small cadre of individuals who all tend to know one-another. Wiley is a naval aviator. There are relatively few of them and they tend to gather together annually in Las Vegas for a convention. It is highly unlikely that Wiley would be able to merely infiltrate this group in a few days like Carl Greenway did. The only way he could replace someone is if he were given a biological cover intended to replicate someone else's appearance, but that would have required him to be another T-series with a coltan endoskeleton, and he would not be able to undergo the intensive examination by doctors frequently required by this service. No, as a T-950, he would have to come here and start from scratch."

"Did you have to do all that stuff? Hack into the government databases and make a whole new you?" John asked her.

Cameron's eyebrow arced, and she made an answer that her HUD suggested might be ironic, "I didn't spend seventy-three days wandering around naked in the New Mexico desert before I decided to steal some clothes and a truck and come to school."

"What did you do?" the teenage boy tried to fight off the image of Cameron's nude body. It proved particularly difficult because he had seen her before, albeit in the middle of a highway exit ramp and just after he had endured the joltingly painful experience of temporal displacement. Still, he remembered with almost perfect clarity the shape of her body, the curve of her bare hips, the soft rise of her bust as she simulated breathing. He was forced to fold his hands in his lap, stare out the window, and focus on the mission.

"Not that." she answered, apparently not finding the details necessary.

John wasn't satisfied with her mysterious answers. He wanted to know, needed to know. It was for the future, after all. And besides, maybe talking about it would keep him from thinking of her naked, thinking of her in his bed, thinking of discovering how fully functional she actually was. He pressed, "Seriously. What did you do? How did you even get registered for school? Buy a truck? Go around a small town alone and not make everyone wonder where you'd come from?"

Cameron was silent for a while, pondering whether or not John should know that information. It was not important that he know yet, and he would eventually come up with the plan on his own anyway. Still, he knew part of the story already and it was logical that he know the rest. Then there was always the trouble with temporal paradoxes: if she never told him, he might not know at all. "The resistance engineers you sent back to build the bank vault and the fusion core weapon. They completed their tasks, posed a husband and wife, and settled in Red Rock using the family name Phillips. Their next mission was to be present when I came through. When I arrived in the middle of the road in nineteen ninety-nine, they were waiting for me with clothes, documentation, and everything else I needed. I was their daughter for a while, part of a family."

"Did the guy who pretended to be your father actually sell tractors?"

"Yes." That one made John's eyebrows nearly hit his hairline. He had not expected this to actually be the truth. "I didn't lie to you about that." Cameron assured him.

"Who were they? Who did I send back?"

"The best engineers the resistance had."

"What were their names?"

"You will know," Cameron said to him, "in time. Patience is virtue."

John laughed sarcastically, "Where did you get _that_ crock of shit?"

Cameron looked at him and smiled in earnest, "from you, twenty years from now." Well, fuck. That shut him up but good. Well okay, no it didn't, but almost.

"Remind me not to tell you that, like, ever."

"Don't tell me that," Cameron parroted evenly, "like, ever." Her HUD had suggested this might be funny and had potential to raise John's morale.

"I didn't mean right now, Cameron."

"I know. It was a joke. You were supposed to laugh," Cameron shot him a blank look. "You should laugh more." Ah, yes, one more of those tidbits of human wisdom he had imparted on her just a few days ago: laugh at jokes. He reminded himself to stop advising her. Everything he told her about what it was like to be human just came back to bite him in the ass. That thing about not being a freak; that was one of those things…

"Yeah," John nodded, looking out the window at the flat expanse of green earth beyond the highway, "you're probably right."

...

They were quite fortunate to find their answer literally parked on the side of the road. A grey Ford F-350 sat among other cars in the parking lot of a Mexican restaurant on O Street right off the exit of Interstate 80 meeting highway 77. They had pulled off onto O Street to search for a gas station before continuing their mission to find an alternate vehicle with which to wreck Parker's car and had spotted it parked on the side of the building away from any windows. It was exactly what they needed and it was vulnerable to theft. Cameron decided that they had enough gas to make it to Topeka and so the two of them pulled in to the restaurant, parking across from the truck.

Cameron opened her door. "Here," she said, "take over and follow me." John moved over, and the terminator ran over to the big diesel truck. A scan of the parking lot proved no signs of potential witnesses. A quick visual scan of the tires revealed their temperature to be quite warm, indicating that they had not yet cooled from the road. Her estimates were that the vehicle had only been parked here for between five and ten minutes.

She picked away some of the skin on the inside of her left wrist and slid a lockpick out of the newly created hole while her HUD protested that her biological covering in that area had been mildly compromised. As the data giving the repair time as seventeen hours, thirty-six minutes, and forty-eight seconds popped up over the damage indicator, Cameron slid the pick into the key slot, pushed, and twisted. The door clicked unlocked and she pulled the handle. It opened and she slid inside.

Once seated, she wrenched the cover of the steering column away and tossed it aside. She tore the ignition wiring loose and leaned forward, using her teeth to strip the plastic insulation from the wiring. Contacting the wires gently a few times would have the desired effect...

An alert from her HUD and a flashing dot in her peripheral vision indicated movement. She turned to see a maroon Cadillac sedan pull into a parking space. The calculated probability that they would notice her was minimal, but she leaned down in the seat and hid herself just in case they noticed her in the truck. If they spotted her, they would probably think the truck belonged to her until a later, when the actual owner revealed to the restaurant that his vehicle had been stolen. They would have seen her in it and may remember what she looked like. No, hiding was best even if she and John were in a hurry. She could always make-up time by speeding a little.

She heard voices talking, a man and woman. Their words were too muffled to interpret clearly, even when Cameron tried to demodulate the sound. However, they were drawing nearer. Suddenly, the Doppler effect of their voices stopped. The sound remained at constant volume and direction. Calculated triangulation indicated that the two of them had stopped behind the truck. They were continuing to converse, one after the other, though she was still unable to determine what they were saying.

The man's voice stayed in position, but was increasing volume. He sounded irritated. The woman's voice was also increasing in volume, but was moving away, back towards the original location where they had parked. It was likely she had forgotten something, a purse or other female accoutrement. He was probably angry that she had been so forgetful. Human males were often unforgiving of their mates. After a very long forty-seven point six-three seconds, the tapping of the woman's shoes closed on the location of her male companion. Their voices resumed at normal volume directly behind her and then began to move towards the door. Fifteen seconds would be an adequate amount of time to ensure they were away from the doorway and out of sight.

Cameron sat up again and tapped the wires together once, twice… and the vehicle rumbled to life. She looked down and noted for the first time that the truck used a manual transmission. Were the cyborg able to sigh, she would have. She found these types of gear-shifts tedious and complicated, though she could use them if she had to. Throwing a look over her shoulder, she popped the clutch, put the clattering vehicle into reverse, and pulled out of the parking space.

Within minutes, the two of them were on highway 77, headed south to an intercept.

...

Erin Parker, Lieutenant Junior Grade, United States Navy, had grown up in the Midwest. Kansas, Oklahoma, and Nebraska had been her stomping ground throughout her entire childhood. It wasn't until she graduated from Highschool and was accepted at the Naval Academy in Annapolis that she had even seen the ocean. She had been raised in the Midwest on agriculture, country music, and duck-and-cover tornado survival.

She had just left the city limits of Lincoln, Nebraska bound for home in Topeka to drop in on her unsuspecting parents while driving cross-country from Oak Harbor, Washington to Oceana, Virginia. The transition from urban area to flat rural grassland had been sudden, and she was forced to remind herself that cities and towns sprang up from the prairie as if they had dropped out of the sky whole. It wasn't like the East or West coasts where city sprawls stretched across multiple counties, touching and swallowing each others suburbs. She remembered how shocked she was when she and a roomie during a break at the Academy had gone to see the roomie's family in Boston. They had made the drive from Maryland all the way to Massachusetts without ever leaving urban area. She thought she would never get used to that. Demands of the service had made her attitude otherwise, and now that she had exited Lincoln and was in the plains again as quickly as if she had walked out the door had surprised her with its strangeness.

As previously stated, she had been raised on country music and at that moment, Toby Keith and Willie Nelson were currently belting out of her radio system.

_'Cause justice is the one thing you should always find. You gotta saddle up yer boys. You gotta draw a hard line. _

She was trying to sing along very badly, and she felt the tug in the back of her mind that was the craving for some nicotine. How her parents would be so upset that she had picked up that particular habit. They had always told her how bad smoking was when she was little.

_When the gunsmoke settles we'll sing a victory tune and we'll all meet back at the local saloon! _

Every time they saw a person puffing away, they'd point it out. It also didn't help that her Uncle Jim, her mom's brother, had recently been diagnosed with emphysema due to his years attached to the business end of a cigarette. They'd be quite upset with her indeed.

_And we'll raise up our glasses against evil forces singin' whiskey for my men, beer for my horses!_

Dad would say that he had raised her better. He wouldn't yell, but he would be disappointed. He taught her to have some manners… Perhaps it was actually a bad idea to drop in on them unexpectedly. Perhaps she shouldn't just show up in the driveway. Perhaps she should…

_WHAM!_

The rubber of her tires squealed in protest against the asphalt as the world spun crazily beyond her windshield. Erin Parker screeched in panic and gripped the wheel tightly as the car flew off the embankment of the road and landed in the field. Clods of dirt, smoke, and automotive debris flew around outside, obscuring her vision, and she saw a momentary brown flash that was a wooden fencepost before it slammed into her front bumper. The metal twisting around the obstacle was suddenly obscured by a silver-white shape that appeared in front of her before she felt that shape strike her in the face. Whoozy, she settled back into the seat as the smoke from the airbag charge wafted about the cabin with her consciousness. It floated back into her head and settled there, having dragged the thought in, the angry thought, that someone had hit her.

Some son-of-a-bitch had fucking _HIT HER_! She peered in the rearview mirror, ignoring the dull sensation of pain in her neck as she saw a monstrous grey pick-up truck with a crumpled front left fender with a smear of paint from her car. Of course it was some asshole in a huge truck. They owned just the whole fucking road didn't they? In their wanna-be Gravedigger penis-substitutions, guzzling gas like cold Schitz and getting all of a half-mile to the gallon. God fucking dammit! She probably had said that aloud. Stupid son-of-a-bitch had probably not even looked in his god damn mirrors before changing lanes!

She threw her door open angrily and stepped out, slamming it shut. The front bumper was completely wrapped around the fucking fence post. Her car was just totaled. How in the hell was she supposed to make her report date now? Spinning around to face the truck, she noticed that there was a girl, a damned teenage girl, walking up to her from the oversized vehicle. A God damned teenaged brat girl who was much too small for that fucking thing. The girl was looking at her intensely with her brown eyes, and Erin took that to mean that the little bitch was mad at her about this.

"What the fuck were you thinking?" Parker shouted at the approaching girl, "Can you even see over the wheel of that damned thing! Look what the hell you did to my car!" Her anger was growing with the realization that her shorts and thigh were soaked and cold. Her cup of ice water had apparently spilled on her, "you could have killed me you little bitch!" Or at least, that was what she meant to say. Only part of it got out, though, before a pale flash of motion had jarred her head. Her last thought before falling unconscious was that she had been hit really hard, and the sound the impact had made probably meant it had been something metal.

...

Cameron caught the woman as her eyes rolled back in her head and her body slumped. She lifted her up and began to carry her to the wrecked Pontiac. John had parked their silver sedan by the side of the road while Cameron had closed in the truck to check out her handiwork and now the young man came running up alongside to offer assistance.

"Do you need help?"

"No," the cyborg replied, "thank you."

"Is she okay?"

"I hit her in the temple. She has a moderate concussion that will render her comatose for approximately fourteen days. She will live so long as she receives medical treatment within the next twenty-four hours."

"That's good I guess." John replied as Cameron slumped the woman across the seat. "She's wet. Did she piss herself?"

"No," Cameron answered as she stood up, and she pointed to the overturned cup of water in the floorboard, "she spilled her drink on impact."

"Oh."

"We need to get to work." And they did so, taking her drivers license, her credit cards, her military ID, her badge, her name tags, dog tags, and any fatigues that had her name printed on them. They checked her luggage and noticed that all the tags of her uniforms had her initials, EEP, on them, so they took these as well. All of these items were shuttled quickly to the trunk of Cameron's car, and it only took them ten minutes to be finished.

Cameron let John take one more good look inside the car for anything that might identify the owner of it while she stole the license plate from the vehicle. She was on the last screw now, backing it out with a hex driver.

"Cameron!" John called to her. She finished with the screw, letting it drop as she removed the plate.

"What is it?" she called back, looking up. A small red and white object was flying her way, and on what counted for instinct among her kind, she reached up to catch it. It crinkled in her hand and she noted it felt like plastic. Turning her hand over, she found in her palm a half-smoked pack of Marlboros.

"She smokes," John told her, unnecessarily, "can you do that?"

Cameron's expression altered just slightly in what John might have called disgust. The skin around her lips tightened and her head tilted. "Yes. I can," she answered. The tone of her voice lacked all enthusiasm, and John could have sworn that this time, it was on purpose.

...

"It's hot in Topeka," John said, a mischievous smile dashing across his face. Sure, Cameron wouldn't get it at all, but John thought it was damned funny and so he chuckled to him self. _It's _hot_ in TOE-pee-KAAAH_…

"It is ninety-three degrees today," the cyborg replied to his comment as they passed through the city on the highway. John was driving, and unlike Cameron, he was not obeying the speed limit in the strictest sense, going at the top end of the legal buffer zone. "Most humans would consider that uncomfortably warm."

At least it was a dry heat and not like John knew the east coast to be; humid and miserable as if you were walking around in a hot steam room all day. That would be fun... The smirk made it onto his face again. "I wonder if it's raining in Spokane." _Showers in Spokane_…

Cameron was confused. "What does the weather in inland Washington have anything to do with the weather in eastern Kansas?" They had disposed of the stolen truck at the junction of highway 77 and Interstate 70 before heading east through Topeka to Kansas City and then into Missouri. Then they would touch Saint Louis, Nashville, Knoxville, Winston-Salem and Raleigh before finally arriving in Virginia and the massive navy complex that was the state's coastline; a continuous port surrounded by supporting city stretching from Virginia Beach back into Chesapeake Bay and all the way north to Baltimore and as far inland as Washington D.C.

"Nothing," John shook his head. It was often hard to forget that he could not make Cameron laugh, though occasionally she could do it to him, sometimes even on purpose. He gave the mysterious cybernetic creature a quick glance. She was entirely focused on the computer in her lap, typing away at what would be John's new identity while they performed their mission. He could not see the screen, so he could not tell how she was coming along with creating it…

"You're drifting," she warned, her voice flat and her eyes still focused on the screen. John looked up in time to see he was indeed drifting into the lane left and towards the back of a red SUV. He flicked the wheel sideways and the car careened back into the lane it belonged, narrowly missing the other vehicle by perhaps six inches. Angry, the other driver blew his horn. Cameron continued typing. "You should drive more safely. Having an accident would potentially delay us and could even land us both in jail. Remember, I'm wanted for a bank robbery and your mother is a terrorist. You are guilty by association. It would be advisable for you to drive in such a way as to not attract undue attention."

John shook his head. "Sure, thanks" was his sarcastic reply.

"You're welcome," was the almost courteous response. _Fuck you_…

The car grew silent again, and John mentally went back over the mission, the plan, the details, each and every step. He reminded himself the ultimate purpose when he thought something stupid or risky. He reminded himself the reason they were on this mission in the first place, what had propelled them to it, what had happened at the gas station in Lemoore… what had happened between he and Cameron. "Hey, Cameron?"

"Yes?"

_Tell me why you kissed me. Tell me why you kissed me. Tell me why you_… "When we were at that gas station… you know, when we saw Wiley for the first time…"

"Yes?"

"You, ah, we…" _Just say it, you fucking idiot! Stop being so goddamned shy!_

"You are wondering about when I kissed you?" _Had she been thinking about it as well?_

John's mouth dropped open momentarily, and he forcibly closed it, "well, ah, yeah. How did…"

Cameron continued to type as she answered, "you were having trouble asking me about something that occurred that evening. You were being awkward. Explanations for first kisses are often awkward for humans."

"Okay," John nodded, "okay. So why… um…"

"Why did I do it?" ticketty-tick-tick-ticketty, "because I was protecting you. I was trying to prevent Wiley from seeing either of our faces. He might have been able to recognize that I was a cybernetic organism, and he would have recognized you as John Connor. I had to ensure that he did not do so because I was as yet unsure of his mission priority."

Damn, but that was a little disappointing. "You mean you didn't really want to?"

"I wanted to do what was necessary to fulfill my primary mission: protect John Connor from harm," she replied. Her fingers were still playing actively over the keys of the laptop, and John was beginning to feel as if this line of questioning was merely distracting her from her task.

"Is that all?"

"Yes."

_Ouch!_ John let out a breath and returned his eyes to the road. "Ouch," he mumbled to himself.

Cameron looked over at him, her hands finally pausing at the keys, "was that the wrong answer?"

_Yes, you cold metal bitch! That was the wrong fucking answer!_ "Um, no," John shook his head, "no."

Cameron's head tilted and her empty eyes bored into his cheek, "you're lying."

"I'm not."

"Your body temperature has risen by a half-degree, your heart rate has increased by fourteen percent, and you are beginning to perspire mildly," the cyborg girl claimed, "you are attempting to deceive me."

John took a hand off the wheel and made a gesture of frustration, "look, I'm driving. Can we not paint me into this corner right now?" He shot a glance at the screen, "what do you have there? How's the progress."

There was a change on Cameron's face, a brief flash of what John might have called disappointment or confusion, before the terminator turned back to the laptop and glanced down at it. "I am almost done," she replied, her voice as lifeless as ever, "All I need is the picture. Tomorrow, you will go into the US Navy personnel database as Petty Officer Third Class Airman Thomas Elijah Castle."

"Elijah?" John's voice showed his disappointment, "really? Couldn't you have picked something more normal?"

"I thought the name had a particular aesthetic," there was disappointment in her voice, deep below the deadpan. John could detect it.

"No, it'll be fine," he said, reassuringly for some reason, "it'll be fine."

_It's _hot _in TOE-pee-KAAAH_…

...

It was late in the evening the following day when they arrived in Virginia Beach, Virginia. The apartment complex that Erin Parker had chosen to live in was less than a mile from the beach on Old Virginia Beach Road, right across Interstate 264 from the ends of NAS Oceana's Runways 23L and 23R. As they pulled up to the low white buildings on the half circle that was Oceana Trace Arch, both the boy and the cyborg spotted several US Navy bumper stickers and parking decals. A lot of base personnel lived here apparently, as it was quite close.

The parking decals did not bother them. Erin Parker had yet to apply hers to the now totaled Pontiac that was probably now in some salvage yard in Nebraska. It had been in the glove compartment. What was a bother is that the apartment business office for Oceana Trace Apartments was closed and there was no way the two of them could get into their new residence this evening. Not that it mattered, anyway. The complex was not expecting Parker to arrive until Sunday and she would not even have any furniture until that arrived by truck on Tuesday morning.

"We will have to stay in a hotel tonight," Cameron said, perhaps even subconsciously lumping herself together with John in the need for sleep, which was something she never did. "I believe the office is open until three on Sunday. We will have errands to run tomorrow anyway in order to be prepared."

"Right," John said, looking past her at the building and the balcony of the apartment that was supposed to be theirs. They had discussed plans changing, the difficulty of finding John a place to live on his own on such short notice and for so short a time. They would be forced to live together. "C'mon, let's head for the beach. There are probably some hotels there that aren't booked."

"True," Cameron agreed, and she put the car in drive again. As they pulled out onto the four-lane freeway that was North Birdneck Road, they heard a growing mechanical scream, a screeching whistle, that thundered directly overhead as it turned into a deafening throaty rumble. It was accompanied by flashing red and green lights, and a shadow in the sky blacker than the night itself. Cameron, through her night vision, was able to identify it as a single-seat F/A-18E Super Hornet on short final, making a perfect approach for Runway Twenty-Three Left.


	5. Arrival

Chapter 4: Arrival

"The Navy is like a cloud across the sky. At a glance, it looks like it's a certain shape, but glance again and it's something different. Now at some point you may look up and say 'That's an ugly cloud,' but if you give it a few minutes, its shape changes into something that may appeal to you. People join the Navy; people leave the Navy. Maybe as you look at the Navy right now, you see an ugly cloud. That's fine. As long as you realize the Navy is the loft ideals and mottoes it claims to be. But the Navy is also people- everyday human beings with all the faults and foibles that man has possessed since the dawn of time. However, the faults of people do not bring down the nobility of the institution…you can judge a cloud, but don't hate the sky."

-Ward Carroll, _Punk's War_

...

They got a room at the Comfort Inn & Suites Oceanfront on 20th Street, separated from the beach only by the famous boardwalk that ran from the Rudee Inlet all the way up the coast to 40th Street. While John slept Cameron worked. With the precision of a machine, she uploaded John's service file and changed the picture on Erin Parker's to one of herself. She did the same with her driver's license, her military ID, and her clearance card. After a few practice attempts she became fluent in Parker's handwriting style, and was even able to replicate the utilitarian and legible signature of the other woman.

Next, she used the hotel's wireless internet and her considerable computer skills to hack various law enforcement databases in search of an individual who might be able to create fake papers. All they would really need is a birth certificate and social security card for E-4 Tommy Castle. The rest, IDs and certifications, would be easy enough to handle with those items. The FBI had a paper maker recently terminated for what was apparently inter-office politics. His name was Andrew Chapman. He was just old enough to have the experience to make him good, and just young enough to still harbor a grudge against the Bureau for firing him. She looked him up, and found him to be living in Norfolk, by Lake Lawson, just 11.55 miles from here.

When dawn approached, she decided that it was time to rouse John. She turned on the television in order to wake him. His response was to moan and roll over, using one of the bed's pillows to cover his head. Cameron stood there for exactly ten seconds waiting for John to sit up. All indications, however, was that he was back to sleep. This was an unsatisfactory outcome. A quick scan of the room revealed that there were disposable cups on the sink. She strode with mechanical confidence over to the sink, took a cup, and pulled the wrapper off in one quick, crinkly motion. She filled the small plastic vessel halfway with water and returned to the bed.

"John, wake up," she said as she pulled the pillow from his head. He grumbled violently, rolled away from her, and settled back down with a grunt. This was still unacceptable, but at least this time she was armed. She held her arm out, holding the cup over his head. On a five-count, she upended the cup, dumping the water directly into his ear.

He sat up quickly, screaming some curse or other. He was awake. Mission accomplished. "Motherfucker!" he shouted, slapping a hand over the wet portion of his face, "that water is cold!"

"The water is eight centigrade," Cameron replied by way of agreement, "it is time to wake up."

John's eyes found the clock. The red numbers on the digital face taunted him. "Cameron, it's five-fucking-thirty."

"I know," she said, "time to get out of bed."

"I went to sleep at two in the morning. I've had," John was so tired that he literally had to count on his fingers, "like, three and a half hours of sleep."

"A warm shower and a cup of coffee will help with that," the cyborg said to him, "now get up. We have a lot to do today." And she walked away to make coffee for him.

...

They were parked in front of a two-story house on Downs Lane overlooking Lake Lawson, which was pathetically tiny as lakes go. It was one of a series of small reservoirs feeding off the waters of the Chesapeake Bay, and was blessed with a copious quantity of green space. If it had not been uncomfortably close to Norfolk International Airport, John would never have known they were in the midst of a vast expanse of urban area. They were just under ten miles, according to Cameron (who stated it 9.46) from NAS Chambers and Sewell's Point, the massive US Navy complex across the bay from Newport News were the Navy kept the Atlantic Fleet's aircraft carriers.

It was just past six o'clock in the morning and John was already sensing that today would be a hot one. The humidity was quite oppressive around all of this water, and the heat yesterday alone had been pretty rough. Cameron had said the high yesterday was ninety-six, and even with the air conditioner in the car blowing, he had been miserably hot. As humid as it was, sweat refused to evaporate and just continued to pile onto the body and add to the misery. Even Cameron's skin had dampened. John could already smell himself beneath the warm and earthy smell of the coffee Cameron had made.

It was funny, he noticed, that she had made her own cup, and actually drank from it occasionally. And though her cheek twitched each time she drank it, as if she hated what she tasted, she continued to sip at it.

John had also noticed something else. Cameron didn't have a body odor. Well, not a _bad_ body odor. She wasn't perspiring as yet, but even when she had yesterday, it wasn't the horribly sharp, fleshy stink one associated with B.O. She smelled… _sweet_. Not a lot, just a little. Like the scent of oleander being carried by the sea breeze. Her smell made John feel comfortable and he wondered if she knew what she smelled like and that it had this affect on him, which made him uncomfortable to contemplate. Still, he found himself breathing through his nose all the same just to catch a hint of her beneath himself and the odor of hot French Vanilla.

There was activity at the house they were watching. An old silver Mitsubishi minivan, 80's vintage, had been parked in the big square driveway since they had arrived. Cameron had scanned it with her ocular sensors and noted that the tire temperature indicated that it had been there a while, but probably not overnight. The van did not belong to Andrew Chapman, who Cameron indicated must own the little red Chevy Cobalt that was in the drive closer to the house. Three men were now emerging and making their way for the van. Cameron gave them one hard look and turned away, looking at John. Her brown eyes making direct contact with his green ones, but there was no intensity in her gaze, only a distant emptiness, mechanical and cold. He found himself staring at her lips again.

He peeked beyond her silken hair, out the window at the three men, all deeply tanned and dark-haired. They were talking jovially, but he could not make out their words. The doors of the minivan closed. The old engine rattled to life, and the machine backed out of the driveway. It sputtered down the road, stopped at the sign, and hung a left on Shell Road. He looked back at Cameron, who had now turned her head to stare at the house. "Arabs?" John asked, his first thought in this new world of terrorists.

Cameron took a sip of her coffee and swallowed heavily as she shook her head. "No," she replied, "Mexicans. Illegals. They were talking about how he had made fake green cards for them." She set the coffee cup in a cup holder and reached into the back seat, into her backpack. Her hand emerged with a gun, a Heckler & Koch Universal Self-loading Pistol, and she pulled up another, a Berretta M9, and handed it to John.

"Guns?" John asked as he checked the slide, "do we really want to scare the shit out of this guy?"

"Yes," Cameron replied as she opened the door and shoved the USP into the waist of her jeans, "we want to scare the shit out of this guy."

They moved across the yard towards the white colonial door. Cameron could tell already that it was deceptively fragile. A solid kick to the mid-point would work excellently. "Go around the back," she told John. He nodded, creeping around the side of the house. There was no fence separating the front and back yards, only one segregating the house from its neighbors. John found that strange, but contemplated little more on it as he made his way to the small back patio, up a couple of concrete steps, and to the back door.

Cameron raised her pistol and then kicked the door with the heel of her boot in exactly the spot she'd intended to strike. The wooden door dehinged and flew backwards, landing intact in the foyer. Cameron stepped in cautiously but quick, crossing over the door and looking into each room as she moved. To her immediate left was a formal dining room with an open entry. Her right entered into a living room, followed by a narrow staircase. Straight ahead was a door, which must lead to the kitchen, because the distinct smell of bacon simmering in a frying pan was wafting from that direction.

She heard the muffled impact of John's foot against the back door, and the creak of it opening. Her HUD alerted her that he was in potential danger by entering the house, and that she should make quickly for his position. Besides, considering the cooking, their target was likely in the kitch…

The kitchen door slammed open and a man burst out, a pistol in his hand. It was a Glock 17, and it cracked out at Cameron three times in rapid succession as he dove across her and up the stairs. She grabbed his shirt with her free hand and kicked his foot out from under him, sending him tumbling onto the steps with a heavy thump. He rolled over, his eyes wide in terror, and pointed the gun at her face. It barked out, bucking in his hand, and the shot struck Cameron in what would have been her cheek bone, cutting flesh away as it clanged off of her coltan skull and imbedded itself into the wood paneling in the wall.

Her head turned towards him, her brown eyes wide and empty, her mouth set sternly. Her HUD indicated that her biological covering had been compromised to a small degree, and she was aware that just beneath her right eye, there was a small silver glimmer slicked with blood. Lightening fast, she snatched at the gun, tearing it from his hands and crushing it between her fingers. She tossed the useless weapon away and stood over him.

"Andrew Chapman?" she inquired unnecessarily.

"Who the hell are you?" he cried, "what are you? What do you want?"

"You make false forms of identification?" she pressed as John came up behind her, gun at the ready.

"Is that what this is about?" the man sat up angrily, "couldn't you have just knocked?"

"We need false identification."

Chapman glanced over at John, not entirely calmed as of yet but surprisingly composed for a man with a gun to his head, "what is she? Like a robot."

"Something like that," the boy replied as he approached and placed a firm hand on Cameron's shoulder. The terminator turned to look at him, and he shook his head at her. She stood straight up and backed off.

"Did you build her?" Chapman asked, amazed. As far as he knew, such technology didn't exist. Not outside Japanese experimental mannequins. And even those were immobile from the waist down and had a vocabulary of perhaps four hundred words total. Certainly this was far in advance of those. The skin even looked so real…

John shrugged, "kinda. It's a complicated story." And Andrew Chapman would have bet real money that he wasn't kidding.

"I'll believe it," Chapman nodded, standing up. "Look, I only do fake IDs for illegals who wanna work and highschool and college kids who wanna drink or buy cigarettes, okay? I don't do terrorists and I certainly don't do people to bash my door down." He dusted himself off and flexed his left knee a few times to ensure that the bang it took was not more severe than it felt.

"You didn't have to attack me with a gun," Cameron told him, her tone perhaps a little uneven.

Chapman sneered "well, you didn't have to kick my fucking door in, sweetheart! I was defending my house. I though you were burglars! You had a gun yourself, you know."

"Look," John held up a hand, "we're sorry for the misunderstanding. I was all about knocking, but she's a little… strong willed, y'know? She likes to do things her way."

"She can plan? She has an imagination?" Chapman was amazed, "you done a good job, kid."

"Yeah," John shrugged as his eyes went to Cameron. Her empty brown stare found those eyes and for the briefest of moments, there might have been life in there before she looked away. "Yeah," the boy replied, "didn't I just?"

Cameron, meanwhile, had pulled out her compact and looked at the silver scar on her cheek. She touched it, tilted her head a little, and snapped the compact closed. "I need a bandage."

They ignored her. "Well, anyway, the fake IDs are for me," John said, "and I'm not the one who kicked your door in. She did. And neither of us are terrorists."

Cameron was glaring at Chapman, menacing him with her empty eyes, "if you don't help us. We'll tell everyone what you do."

"Cameron!" John snapped at her, "really, knock it off."

The terminator was vexed, her eyes wide as a doe's. "Knock what off?"

The teenaged boy sighed heavily and folded his arms, "as in stop it. Okay? Go put the door back on the hinges or something."

Chapman watched the pretty little machine march over to the door and lift it up in preparation to repair it. She did this with one hand, and he found himself yet again marveling at her, this time her strength. "So you said you needed fake IDs?"

"Yeah,"

"For you or for her?" He could not remember.

"For me," John reminded him, perhaps a little more than flustered that he found Cameron so interesting.

Chapman shrugged, "good. Because there aren't any fake IDs in the world that could make people believe she's a normal functioning human being. But if you ain't gonna tell nobody, I won't either." He sniffed the air, and John caught it too. Whatever was in the frying pan was about to overcook. "C'mon," Chapman motioned for him to follow, "we'll discuss it over breakfast."

Behind them, Cameron slammed the hinges back into place with her palm.

...

"I spent most of my time at the Bureau doing support for undercover and witness protection," Chapman explained as he landed plates of bacon and waffles in front of his guests, "I gave people new lives and new faces. That was my job. And I loved doing it." He reached for the toaster right as a newly golden pair of Eggos popped up, "I did it for twelve years. Then about six months ago, we got a new department head. He was a young guy with all of these ideas about how to change the department and make it better." The chair squeaked as he sat down, "I fucking hated the guy. He especially didn't like me; treated me like I was part of the problem. I was like 'dude, I make fake papers. Gimme a break!' I mean, how can you fuck that up, right? A driver's license is a god damn drivers license. So we just didn't get along. One day, he just up and hands me a pink slip. Bastard." He cut into the top waffle with a fork. "So now I work at a supermarket as a manager. It's awful work and I have to put up with whiney teenaged employees and grammas who are on their last leg and customers who think everything is my fault. I still make fakes, though. The teen partygoers I do it for the money, but the illegals… they spent so much effort to come here and work at doing stuff that spoiled Americans won't do. I mean c'mon, would you work in a plant processing chickens or out in a field picking fucking tomatoes in the summer heat? I wouldn't. But they would. They're happy to do that kind of work. So it's like giving them a new life, 'know?" he looked up to his guests, "How is it?"

John had to hold up a finger, his mouth full of crispy, syrup-covered Eggo. "It's good."

Cameron was holding a piece of bacon in her hand, rolling it over and over in her fingers. Her brown doe-eyes were open wide and might have appeared curious but for the feeling that when one looked into them, they saw the abyss. A large square bandage was on her cheek, covering the silver scar that Chapman's gun had made. "This is burnt pig's flesh," she offered.

"Not hungry?" Andrew Chapman asked, curious. He wasn't sure how a robot ate.

Cameron's HUD was telling her that she was being conspicuous by not eating and may be breaching social protocols by refusing food. The cyborg brought the crisp of bacon up to her mouth and bit down, chewing on it. Her eyes narrowed slightly, as if she were considering the taste, as if it actually mattered to her.

"Does she like stuff?" the man asked John, "how did you build something like her?"

John shrugged, "I don't know yet." He almost wanted to laugh at Chapman's expression, "it's a long story."

"Can she… I mean… is she fully functional?"

Cameron answered for herself this time, almost as if she were uncomfortable being talked about as if she wasn't present, "I am fully capable of replicating all human behaviors and activities." There might have been a smile in her voice.

Chapman wasn't satisfied, "so do you have any likes and dislikes? What does a… thing like you do for fun?"

"I'm not a thing," Cameron corrected, "I am a cybernetic organism. I am not capable of emotions, but I suppose that if you are asking how I derive purpose and fulfillment, my answer would be the adequate performance and completion of my assigned missions."

"Mission?" Chapman gestured with his fork, "what mission?"

"To protect John…"

"SO!" John interrupted quickly before his name might be mentioned aloud by accident, "how much do you charge for your fake IDs?"

"Depends," Chapman took another bite of waffle, "what do you need?"

"He needs a birth certificate and a social security card," Cameron replied, "I can provide appropriate data."

"Those I can do," Chapman agreed, "but I can't do complete insertions anymore. Someone gives a shit and looks up the social security number on the card, and you're fucked."

Cameron's head tilted, "I did not know that violent copulation was a form of punishment," this drew a snicker from the others, "however, I have already conducted the necessary processes to ensure the veracity of the information we provide."

"Okay," Chapman said, "Usually I do driver's licenses and green cards, like I said. Five hundred bucks a pop. This is harder, though. Two grand?"

John's eyes went wide, but Cameron calmly tucked a hand into her pants pocket and withdrew a small wad of tissue. She lay it on the table and opened it, revealing three diamonds; one of karat size and two others at three-quarters of a karat. "Do you accept diamonds?"

Chapman shrugged, "well, I prefer cash, but," and he took the largest one and held it up, inspecting it. In his time at the Bureau, he had learned a thing or two about diamonds. "I have been considering proposing to my girlfriend. And these look pretty good from what I can see. You have a deal."

Cameron actually did smile a little at this. "Excellent."

"Hey," John asked of Chapman, "do me one more favor, okay?"

"Sure," he agreed.

"Don't tell anyone about her," John said, "I'm not ready for the world to know yet."

Chapman chuckled at his request, "kid, who am I gonna tell? No one would believe me. C'mon, a robot that looks and acts like a human? Shoot, everyone would think I was as crazy as that Connor lady."

...

The day passed with other errands. Birth Certificate and Social Security Card for Thomas Castle: check. Virginia Driver's License for Thomas Castle: check. Pair of dog tags for Thomas Castle: Check. Nametapes to be applied to uniforms: Check. Everything they would need for the mission was now in place and would rely on the anticipated activities of others. They were ready, Cameron surmised, to begin the operation. She closed the laptop and stood from the hotel room table.

John was sitting on the bed in shorts and t-shirt. The television was on, but he had been watching her instead. When her eyes turned to him, his face moved quickly to be engrossed in the TV. Cameron glanced at the screen and noticed that he was now watching C-SPAN with intense interest. Someone was droning on about the effects of the economic stimulus not being what had been hoped for in very technical terms that Cameron failed to understand. Killing people, infiltrating a social network, spying, operating weapons from an inexpensive handgun to a multimillion dollar platform were easy to her. Understanding supply and demand, economic exchange, mortgages, real estate, was an alien concept to her.

John flipped the channel. "So," he asked aloud over the television noise, "what's next?"

"Immediately," Cameron replied, "sleep for you." She opened a compact and looked at the small mark of paler skin beneath her eye where Chapman's bullet had struck her. The covering would be fully healed by morning, thanks to her advanced healing capabilities. She might need to consume some proteins in the near future to make up for any she lost brokering this small repair, but she foresaw plenty of opportunity for that in the coming days.

"I'm not tired yet. It's ten thirty. You wanna find a movie?"

The terminator could not "want" beyond the limits of her programming. But her programming did leave her with a desire for knowledge, especially that which might help her in social situations. A movie she had not seen might be a conversation topic at some point, and she could better infiltrate with knowledge of it. "That would be acceptable." She crossed over to the bed, "may I sit with you?"

John looked up at her in a way that showed he was surprised by her forwardness. "Um," he let out, "yeah, that's fine," and he made room for her on the bed next to him. Cameron kicked off her sandals and plopped down with all the care a typical teenager might give to the task. She chose to mimic John's posture exactly, hands clasped on her stomach, legs folded.

"Your mother and Derek should be arriving Monday night."

"Okay," the boy continued to flip channels. He found what he was looking for, an action movie, and set the remote down. There was an explosion on the screen, and a car was launched through the air. A dose of violence might be just what they needed.

...

From South Oceana Boulevard, one turned onto Tomcat Boulevard to enter Oceana Naval Air Station. Tomcat turned northwest just after it is joined by Phantom from the south and the main guard gate is here. Cameron, dressed in duty whites as Erin Parker, pulled up to this gate Monday morning and rolled down her window. She held up her military ID to the marine sentry. He looked it over then took a peek at the decal on the driver side windshield of her car. It said Department of Defense Registered Vehicle 8667FC, NAS Oceana. He saluted her and waved her through. She followed Tomcat past the gate guard display aircraft at G Avenue, continuing past F and E avenues to the roundabout intersection at Hornet Drive. She turned here to the left and followed Hornet to the intersection with 5th Street before hanging a right and going to A Street, where the tarmac and the massive administrative complex was for what had formerly been the east coast fighter wing before the last of the F-14s had been retired from service. Now it belonged to all of those squadrons that had once flown the famous fighter and were now flying the newest version of the F/A-18. A right turn behind the building put her in the parking lot, and she found a space for her silver sedan. She parked and shut the engine off.

She stepped out of the car, her white pumps clomping loudly on the concrete, and closed the door behind her, ensuring that it was locked. Scanning quickly, she decided that the most efficient route would be to go straight for the nearest door. However, she could perform some quick reconnaissance if she were to travel around to the tarmac side and enter through VFA-32's specific hanger. She chose this option.

The trip around took Cameron approximately five minutes, and as she walked in her even and mechanical pace along the face of the building, she passed by rows and rows of single- and two-seat Super Hornets sitting in parade with wings folded atop spots on the tarmac filthy and stained from years of sitting beneath the leaky Tomcats, and the equally leaky Phantoms before them. Each row of planes belonged to a squadron, and they were all in numerical order. On the tails of the aircraft, she recognized the snarling boar and lightening-emblazoned shield of VFA-11 and VFA-31's merry Felix the Cat carrying a cherry bomb. She stopped at a row of F/A-18Fs, the two-seat version of the Navy's latest strike fighter, with the appropriate markings: the rampant lion wielding a broadsword of VFA-32. Far beyond them, she caught the last moments of an F/A-18C on short final. As it glided to the ground, the pilot flared the jet skillfully, and it touched down so lightly that the tires didn't even squeak or emit the protesting cloud of rubber smoke often seen at landings. The Hornet rolled out the landing and disappeared from her view. When it did, she turned towards her objective.

Immediately inside the open maw of the VFA-32 hanger, a mustachioed senior chief wearing a sullied red jersey was giving a speech to a gaggle of similarly-dressed airmen. "Now, this missile exercise is going to bring with it an extremely intense operational period. We will be doing as much, if not more, work than we were doing on the Boat during deployment. Don't think of this as more work. Think of this as an opportunity to keep our skills honed. And as an opportunity to make the squadron look good." Cameron watched as she walked. He paced back and forth in front of them, his hands clasped before him, his manner easy. His voice echoed in the open space of the hanger.

"Now, our first and primary concern is to do our jobs with a focus on quality. Quality entails that we perform our weapons build-ups, our loading, and our arming evolutions quickly, efficiently, and, most of all, safely," the chief reminded his charges as he counted off his points on his fingers. "We want those jets loaded and ready to go as quickly as possible. If we're too slow, then the jets will be late for their range time and at best, the whole squadron comes off as looking bad. When it comes time to arm up, be sure you have everything you need right were you can get at it. Make sure your tools are on the cart, make sure all your parts are on the cart, and get rolling. But don't get in such a rush that you do an unsafe job. Failure to be safe can cost lives and multi-million-dollar airplanes." A pause for dramatic effect. "That means don't cut corners and forget to insert the safing pin into a missile that you're loading. That means that if a weapon requires a crew of eight to load it up and lock it down, don't try to get by with a crew of six. That means if you have a fuse or a weapon that is suspect for any reason, be it a tampered fuse or a bent fin, you don't load that weapon on the airplane. You find another. And _that_ means that you inspect your weapons before you load them on the cart to be taken out there in the first place.

"Okay, this is going to be an intense period, but if we do our jobs right and we do our jobs well, it'll be a very rewarding experience and we're gonna have a lot of fun. So just keep these things foremost in your mind as we proceed through the next two weeks. And if you ain't Ordinance…"

The crowd around him responded in unison, finishing the mantra with an enthusiastic chorus "YOU AIN'T SHIT!"

...

Cameron's abandoned sedan sat apparently empty in the parking lot among a group of other cars. But anyone who approached it might have heard some noise coming from the trunk. There was a rattle, followed by a few thumps, and maybe even a muffled curse. All was quiet for a few seconds, then there was a loud bang from inside the trunk, as if someone was kicking something in frustration, followed by a few more seconds of silence. This was followed by a thud… a second thud… and then a click before a section of the back cushion folded forward onto the seat and John Connor crawled out into the passenger cabin. He was panting heavily and there was sweat forming on his brow.

He sat there for a moment in the growing oven that was the car, and his thoughts were of Cameron. Specifically of how much he wished she were human. That would be really, really nice. That would mean that he could pull her close, wrap his hands around her throat, and strangle her to death, shaking his hands back and forth as he squeezed, watching the consciousness fade from her eyes. And he would continue to strangle her until her unconscious body convulsed from lack of oxygen and he heard the death noise, the sound of her body releasing, and he smelled the smell of death on her. That was a nice vision. Because seriously, who sneaks around in a fucking trunk anymore? God damn it.

It took him a moment of nervous consideration before he decided to continue his mission. He peeked up just over the sill of the window, making sure that no one was passing his way before gently easing the door open. He crawled out, ensuring that he was extra quiet, and reached back in to close the cushion back into position. That accomplished, John stood up and dusted off his utilities before giving a quick look around.

He was parked in a lot on the corner of 5th Street and B Avenue, behind the massive fighter complex on A Street. Around to his right was the 4th Street water tower and behind him one of the equally massive admin buildings. Cameron had made him memorize the lay-out of the entire base. If asked, he could guide anybody to the tennis courts on the corner of 7th and E, or the Oceana Officer's club on G Avenue, or even the enlisted barracks on 1st and F. Cameron was a stern taskmaster, and John had a good memory for this kind of thing.

His story, in case anyone asked, would be that he had taken the bus, as there was in fact Bus Stop 37 for the Virginia Beach transit system on 3rd and D. Why he could not have actually done this instead of ridden in the hot trunk of the car on a day when the high was supposed to be in the upper nineties was beyond him. But Cameron had insisted on doing it her way this one time. And it was so very hard to convince the little machine to do it your way when hers was… well… hers and it was the final word. Period. Sometimes, John wondered, if he had sent her back to torment his younger self. She was so beautiful and so innocent of the world, and yet at the same time she was so frighteningly deadly and so God damn stubborn… he should kick her in her coltan head, not that it would achieve anything.

He gave one last quick look around, wiped the sweat from his forehead, and started walking.

...

Callsigns are not cool. Callsigns are the anti-Christ. No one really wants one. It is a label, a nom-de-guerre, a nickname. But it is not mean or threatening. It does not sound inspiring or edgy. It is not at all like Hollywood. Here, there is no Maverick or Iceman, no Cool Hand or Razor. In the ball-busting annals of military aviation, the callsign is yet another way to take a stab at the ego, to drop the proud down yet one more peg, to kick someone where it is most irritating. It is a way to poke fun, and it never goes away. The callsigns make fun of family heritages. Bad last names like Campbell, Hass, or Waters will earn labels like Soup, Bung, or Muddy. They make fun of poor genetics and physical anomalies. Pizza, Samson, or Biff will forever haunt aviators with bad complexions, baldness, or for being the **BI**g **F**at **F**ighterguy. Some callsigns are special. The best are reserved for those who have made very severe and embarrassing mistakes. These are the Chunx, the Steamers, the Chokes, the guys who puked, who shit themselves, who got caught masturbating. The callsign is what highlights the most glaring flaws of the naval aviator, casts a spotlight on his weaknesses, and is the constant reminder of the most embarrassing thing he has ever done as an adult. And callsigns never go away unless a far worse mistake happens down the road.

This was the case with one tall, blond and boyish Lieutenant Junior Grade formerly known as Nathan Gerard. He was now recognized amongst the bubbas of Strike Fighter Squadron Thirty-Two as Fungus. Fungus was his callsign. It was an acronym. It stood for Fuck You New Guy, You Suck. Fungus had earned this callsign on the last deployment that VFA-32 had just returned from. A Weapons and Sensors Officer, a back-seater, he had been attached to the squadron mid-cruise and had joined during a port call to Naples. As he integrated into the squadron, it was discovered that he liked basketball, and had played for his Indiana highschool's champion team. Now, on no-fly days immediately before or after port calls, several of the officers from VFA-32 would gather together, roll out the Boat's basketball hoop out onto the lowered port-side elevator, and play a little half court. Gerard had been invited along to play. These games often got rather rough by comparison to the varsity games that Gerard had played in his youth, with fouls not called but performed in profusion. One particular foul had caused one of the shiny new aviator's team mates to drop the ball and it went rolling quickly along the non-skid towards the edge and the ocean. The ball was no big deal. It belonged to the Boat. If they lost one, some Aegean fisherman might pick it up and they had successfully exported American culture. They could always just get another. But Gerard wouldn't let it go. He scrambled for it, valiantly leaping after it and catching it mid-hop, tossing it back towards the other players. And he slammed into the goal post, sending the Boat's only basketball hoop teetering into the Mediterranean Sea with only a small splash. His fellow officers, his brothers-in-arms, had been quite upset. They had all ran over to the edge to see if they could salvage the situation. Maybe they had gotten lucky. But no, the whole contraption had gone over the side and had sunk out of sight almost instantly. Gerard had offered that at least he had saved the ball, but the only response from one of his fellow aviators had been "fuck you new guy. You suck" as they all walked away from the edge, the game thoroughly interrupted. Thus, Nathan Gerard was no longer Nathan Gerard. Nathan Gerard was Fungus.

Fungus was currently manning the squadron's duty desk, a glorified secretarial position that all junior officers were required to hold by rotation. An aviator on a no-fly day or one that was being punished was often selected as duty officer for the day. As the duty officer, he was responsible for answering and transferring calls, summoning other squadron members, posting the approved flight schedule, and keeping the coffee pot in the ready room hot and full. It was a demeaning assignment, but everyone had to do it at some point, and it was better than, say, being assigned TAD to the squadron Heads Maintenance Division, the small group of underappreciated individuals that cleaned and maintained the squadron's bathrooms.

At the moment, Fungus was sitting at the duty desk, wearing duty khaki slacks and a dark blue squadron polo shirt. He was not alone in the room. Katherine "Kitty" Collier, a full lieutenant and front-seater, was currently sitting in one of the padded leather chairs that faced the briefing board, drinking a cup of coffee and flipping through the maintenance file of the aircraft she was to fly that afternoon, checking it for any and all gripes. Every once in a while she would scratch her bowl-cut sandy hair and look about the room with her electric blue eyes, maintaining her situational awareness as any aviator had a habit of doing. Kitty had just finished her second deployment with VFA-32 and her three years with the squadron was coming to a close. Soon, she would be transferred, probably to a shore-based duty to broaden her horizons before sending her back to the fleet and flying For Real. If asked, Kitty would claim that she had always preferred to be called Kat by her friends, and so Kitty was just a play on that. The first part was true. The second was not. But she generally could not repeat the story of accidental exposure during swim call in a public venue.

Joining her in her task was Lieutenant Commander Ed Barlowe, a WSO in his late thirties that kept his head clean-shaven. He was known as "Whip" amongst the squadron, which was short for Snidely Whiplash, a reference to his thin black mustache that he was known to curl the ends of occasionally. Even in this late a period, some Navy men were not apt to fly or fight alongside a female, but Whip didn't care. He found Kitty's devotion to duty refreshing, and the fact that she was already checking up on their airplane, hours even before the brief, was the sign of a solid officer. A former Tomcat RIO, Whip had been around long enough to tell.

The aircrew was dressed in their CWU-27s, the Nomex coveralls that pilots wore when flying or expecting to do so. They would add two layers and forty pounds more of gear in the paraloft when it came time to man up. Fungus found himself jealous that they were going flying today and that he was not. He would love to get himself attached to a flight, even a maintenance ride, if it meant getting off his ass and actually doing something instead of this clerical garbage. But no, he would have to wait until tomorrow.

The door opened. Fungus's eyes were automatically drawn to the movement. In stepped a female lieutenant j.g, a very young looking one at that, with chocolate hair and caramel doe eyes. She was very pretty, in a threatening kind of way, and her uniform was unrealistically precise. She strode into the room with a mechanical and confident gait, a long stride that swung her hips just right and brought her to his desk in just a few steps. She held her white combination cap in the crook of her left arm which was squarely tucked behind her back leaving her right arm to swing with her gait. She arrived at his desk and gazed down at him with empty expectance. "I am Lieutenant Erin Parker," she said in a silvery voice, "the new squadron intelligence officer. I need to see the CO. Please."

Fungus cleared his throat, uncomfortable with the way she was looking at him. He shot a glance over at Kitty and Whip, who had stopped their discussions on how the maintenance of 206 would affect their flight and were watching this Erin Parker with extreme interest. Fungus attempted to answer, "he's, ah, Commander Morgan is in his office. I can call him to let him know you're here."

"Please," she replied with a nod, the intensity of her eerily vapid gaze not mollified one iota.

"Sure," Fungus was all too glad to turn away from this weirdo and dial the CO's extension. It rang twice before his female secretary picked up.

"Commander Morgan's office, this is Petty Officer Jacobson speaking. How may I help you?"

"Jacobson, this is Lieutenant Gerard in the squadron ready room. The new intelligence officer has arrived and would like to report to him. Does he have a moment?"

"Sure thing, lieutenant. He and Commander Hudson are just finishing up now. Send her on over, sir, and I'll tell them she's on her way."

"Thank you, Petty Officer."

"You're welcome, sir." The line clicked closed, and Fungus found himself facing Her again.

"The CO has time for you. His office is down the hall, second door on the right."

"Thank you," the woman replied. She turned on a heel and departed the room with the same energy she had entered with. As the door closed behind her, Fungus shared raised eyebrows with his squadronmates.

Whip let out a whistle. "Weird" he said in his Midwestern drawl.

"Very," Kitty agreed. Fungus could only nod in accordance.

...

Cameron Phillips followed the directions given to her by the yellow-haired male duty officer she had spoken to, and she quickly arrived at the appropriate door labeled CO STRIKEFITRON 32. With a tilt of her head, she examined the dull blue-grey door momentarily, determining it to be made of white pine, a material having an average weight of twenty-six pounds per cubic foot. The age of the door made it likely that it was solid wood, giving it an approximate weight of ninety-one pounds. It was likely a perfect example of what type of doors she could expect in the interior spaces all over the base, as the government tended to buy in bulk whenever possible. It could be easily penetrated if necessary by the appropriate application of force. She reached up to this door and tapped loudly with her knuckle, both to announce her presence and to test the solidness of the door. It was indeed solid white pine, and she was as pleased as a machine could be that her calculations were correct. She turned the knob and entered.

"Good morning, ma'am," a twenty-something female petty officer said. She sat at a big oak desk with a respectably powerful computer at her disposal. She was very Celtic: pale skin, fiery-red hair and glassy green eyes. She was what Cameron understood to be socially desirable in appearance and physical composure. "You are here to see the skipper?"

"Yes," Cameron parroted, "I am here to see the skipper." She attempted to identify the slang term, taking it to mean the commanding officer of a vessel or team, and NOT the character from the _Gilligan's Island_ television program that she had seen reruns of during late nights of patrolling the house.

Petty Officer Jacobson shrugged her head a little, "go right in, Lieutenant. He's expecting you. You can leave your cover on my desk if you like, ma'am."

Thus bidden, Cameron laid her cap on the desk and marched past the woman, through another of these haze grey doors, and into the office of Commander Bill "Morgs" Morgan, the commanding officer of Strike Fighter Squadron Thirty-Two. She allowed the heels of her white pumps to click loudly together as she stood at rod-straight attention, shoulders back, chin up, and arms straight at her sides. "Lieutenant Junior Grade Erin Parker reporting for duty, sir" she snapped.

"Lieutenant Parker," Morgs stood up from his chair. His full head of salt-and-pepper hair was cropped close, and his eyes where what humans called jolly. He was not a tall man, standing about five-foot-eight, and he had the type of face that was playful, but could easily turn frighteningly angry in an instant. "At ease." He came around the desk and extended a hand, exuding a laid-back confidence that Cameron decided was likely well-earned. Morgan was the commander of a fighting unit, and his entire personality made it clear that he excelled at every aspect of his position. The terminator took the offered hand and shook it. "Glad you're here."

"Thank you, sir," Cameron replied, deciding in a millisecond of calculation that it would be the best response. She allowed herself a quick scan of his office. It was fairly spartan, with white walls and a linoleum floor. The desk was cherry wood and of IKEA make. It was decorated with only a small inbox, writing mat, and a carved wooden model of an F-14A wearing the colorful markings of VF-32 as they appeared in the 1970's. The computer was at least three years old. His chair was a high-backed swivel type covered with brown leather. Directly behind was a window that looked out over the parking lot and one of the admin buildings beyond. On either side of this single pane were bookshelves that matched the desk. Each one was filled with reference titles from Osprey Publishing, Squadron Signal, and Jane's, NATOPS manuals for the current and previously operated aircraft, and other works one might expect to line the shelves of such an office. On one side of the room were two wooden chairs. Opposite these was a couch, currently occupied, beneath a large print of an F-14B bearing the deep blue and yellow markings of Gypsy 100, the colorful CAG jet of VF-32 when they had flown the aircraft.

Morgs motioned to a chair, "have a seat." The cyborg did so, noting for the first time the other man standing in the room. He was a head taller and more heavily built than the CO. His face featured large brown eyes and a prominent hooked nose, and had obviously seen a lot of sunlight in its day, and his balding head was fringed with black hair. Like Morgs he wore a flight suit. The shoulder tabs were embroidered with the silver oak leaves of a Commander. The blue and gold nametag on his left breast was adorned with the two-anchor wings of a Navy Flight Officer and identified him as Commander Mike Hudson, "Hawk." Cameron considered it more likely that his callsign had something to do with his beakish nose. He was smiling at her in a guarded and cordial way, and not in a necessarily friendly manner.

"This," Morg gestured to the XO as he took his own seat, "is Commander Hudson, he's my executive officer."

"Welcome to VFA-32, Lieutenant."

"Thank you again, sir."

Morgs pulled open a vanilla folder that was on his desk, and immediately Cameron became aware that this was a copy of Erin Parker's service jacket, and quite possibly had been ran off before she changed the photographs. Immediately, she began to calculate possible escape and exit routes, and noted that the authorities would be alerted. It would be a shame that they would have to abort their… "I printed myself a copy of your service file this morning, hoping to get to know you better," Morgs said as he spread it before him. Immediately, Cameron's alerts became canceled, "why don't you paint me a picture of your career?"

"Well, sir," And Cameron added an appropriate swallow, "after I graduated intel school, I did my mandatory thirty-month operational tour serving aboard the Landing Assault Ship USS _Belleau Wood_ as part of the intelligence division aboard. I mostly performed amphibious threat assessment. After that, I was given orders to Joint Task Force South West Asia, where I spent twelve months once again doing threat assessment and occasionally working on the Air Tasking Order…"

"That's where you earned the Navy Unit Commendation?"

"Yes, sir. The staff I was part of, we remapped the Iranian air defense zones and fixed SAM sites, and we rewrote the strike plan options, you know, just in case."

"Then after you left JTF-SWA, you were transitioned to VAQ-135?"

"Yes, sir, for six months," Cameron added a nod, "it was a transitional assignment. They were holding on to me until VFA-32 returned from deployment and it was intended to prepare me to operate at the squadron level, which I had never done before."

"Okay," Morgs gave a satisfied frown, "you also got the Joint Service Achievement medal."

"Yes, sir. It was for my work with the Marines on _Belleau Wood_. If you recall the brief tensions in '05 with the North Koreans, I was part of op planning for that. Apparently, I did my job well enough."

"It says you worked overtime mapping air corridors into North Korea that would support an amphibious assault. On your own. Usually it takes a whole department to do that."

Shrug. "It was a side project. I just wanted to make sure we had an option we could use that needed only a single carrier battle group and a Marine expeditionary force."

"Well, that impresses the hell out of me," Morgs nodded, "Shit, I don't think we expect that much out of our IO. Do we, Hawk?"

"Nope," the XO replied in his earthy baritone.

"What we will expect of you," Morgs told her, "is for you to represent the squadron at all air wing and battle group intelligence functions. Ensure them that the Swordsmen are ready and able to perform any necessary tasks. If you can, push for us to get the good targets, too. I will also expect you to maintain the squadron's threat charts, brief my air crews on targets and the dangers they may be facing on missions, and keep the XO and me informed of all potential activity. Do you think you can do that?"

"Yes, sir," Cameron nodded.

"Good," the commander said, and he began shuffling through her jacket. "Have you passed a flight physical?"

Cameron was not at all certain whether Erin Parker had been so evaluated. She had not noticed anything about it in the electronic files. If the answer was yes, she could not be sure and there might be evidence in the jacket that stated otherwise. She could be safe and answer no, but that would also bring with it certain problems. She would be required to perform several physical feats in order to pass. Running a mile-and-a-half with respectable time and learning to combat g-forces would be easy. But she would also have to tread water in full gear for a half-hour and make a blind-folded maze swim. Both of these were problematic in that a) she would be under the intensive examination of a doctor, and b) she did not swim. The density of her coltan skeleton offset the buoyancy of her biological components. She would sink like… like a brick. These things her electronic brain had reminded her of in nanoseconds after the question was posed, not yet enough time to appear suspicious…

"Ah, here it is," Morgs pulled up a printed sheet, "you have. Four months ago. You passed it."

Cameron found herself curious, "if I may ask, as a non-flying member of this unit, what does my passing of the flight physical entail?"

Morgs pursed his lips, pleasure glittering in his eyes. "Well, I believe that you can't truly serve this squadron in your capacity until you have been familiarized with how we do our jobs. I want you to be able to understand what it is we do and how, so that you can understand exactly what we need from you. So, I'm requiring that you take two familiarization flights in the back seat. You will be flying one strike training mission and one air combat maneuvers training mission. Once you see how the tasks of strike and air combat are performed, you will better be able to keep those in mind performing your duties."

"Sir…" Cameron began to protest. Morgs cut her off with a wave of his hand.

"Look, this is stuff you need to know if you're going to work in this unit, okay? Just try to enjoy it. Let it be a learning experience."

"Yes, sir."

"That will be all, Lieutenant."

Cameron stood, clicked her heals together at attention, made an about face, and walked out of the room, closing the door behind her. Morgs and Hawk watched her go, and they shared mischievous glances.

"You wanna lay bets on whether she'll puke?" Morgs asked his XO.

"For or against?" Hawk inquired.

"I'm for."

The XO shook his head. "Nah, I think she can handle it. I'll take that bet."

"Twenty bucks?"

"Done." And they shook on it.

"Bill, why do you do this to every new officer we get?" Hawk asked with a smile. Morgs just leaned back in his chair and shrugged, grinning broadly. "God," the XO shook his head with a chuckle, "you are an asshole sometimes."

...

"How did this get so fucked up, Senior Chief?" Lieutenant Commander Greg Hull asked, the back of his neck turning red. "I mean, really? How the fuck did this happen?"

Senior Chief Heathrow was not exactly sure what to say. Though ten years younger than he was, Hull was VFA-32's maintenance officer and was Heathrow's boss. Hull was responsible for the health and well-being of all the squadrons twelve F/A-18F Super Hornets and all of the associated equipment. He was also responsible for the maintenance division personnel. And that was the particular problem. One of his division leaders, in this case Senior Chief Heathrow, head of VFA-32's rigging shops, had utterly failed to be informed that he had an incoming assignee. Apparently, the squadron's copy of the cut orders had been misplaced, and the sailor in question had been unfortunate enough to have his car stolen with his own copies just the day before. Yet, when Hull had checked with the Oceana BuPers office, the orders were present and standing. Thus, Heathrow was quite vexed at the situation. "I'm not at all sure what to say, sir. I'm certain that I'd remember seeing the assignment, but I can't remember doing so."

"We were supposed to refuse him," Hull said, "an E-4 is a section leader in our division, and we don't have a section to give him. Who was he supposed to be a replacement for?"

"Petty Officer Ortega, sir. But she's not outbound for another three months."

Hull sighed and scratched his head violently, then landed his hand hard on his desk. "Okay. Alright, fuck it. I don't want to have to send this kid back to… where the fuck did you come from?"

John Connor had been standing at attention this whole time, trying to ignore that he was being talked about as if he were not standing there. Hull's snap brought him back as he realized he was being talked to, "Um, NAS Pax River! Sir!" He and Cameron had come up with the plan that Thomas Castle had been previously assigned to Naval Air Station Pawtuxet River in Maryland, home to Naval Air Systems Command, Air Test Wing Atlantic, and the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Systems Command.

"Which division where you in again?"

"NAVAIR, sir."

"NAVAIR," Hull nodded, "well, they cut your orders to come here, and due to our collective ineptitude, we accepted you when we didn't have an open spot. Well, we're not gonna send you back. You've had a rough enough weekend as it is. I hope you get some leads on your car."

"Thank you, sir."

Hull turned to Heathrow, "attach him to Ortega's section. He'll just take over when she leaves. Get outta my sight, both of you."

"Aye, sir." Heathrow responded. He motioned for John to follow, "C'mon, Castle. Follow me." The walk to VFA-32's life support shop was not very far, and Heathrow showed him into the room. Inside, six people, all wearing green jerseys, were busy performing various tasks; applying 3M reflective tape to flight helmets, adjusting sizes on CMU-33 survival vests, or running leak tests on various types of oxygen masks.

"Airman Chung!" An angry voice with a latino accent snapped over the thrumming sound of a sewing machine "god damn it, girl. I told you that Lieutenant Commander Willard doesn't like the straps on his bayonet clips sewn down!" The shout came from a short latin woman in her mid twenties. She wore the three chevrons of an E-6 on her utility blues. The shout was directed at a darkly tanned Asian girl seated at a Singer. She wore glasses and her hair was pulled back in a bun the size of a large cantaloupe.

The Asian girl, apparently Chung, looked up from her work and replied defensively "I though you said Lieutenant Williams."

The female E-6 rolled her eyes, "Lieutenant Will_iams_ uses an MBU-24. Lieutenant Commander Will_ard_ uses an MBU-14. How long you been doin' this fuckin' job, chica?"

"Um, fourteen months."

"Yeah. Fourteen months. You should be able to tell the differences between the straps by now. Who the fuck did you sleep with to get this qualification, huh? Get the seam ripper and take those out. _Madre de Dios_!" And she dramatically threw her hands up.

"Petty Officer Ortega!" Heathrow called out when the exchange was finished.

The latin woman looked up, "yes, Senior Chief?"

"C'mere! I got someone for you to meet." Ortega put down the helmet shell she was working on and strode over, her pace that of angry confidence. When she stood before them, Heathrow gestured to John. "This is Petty Officer Third Class Thomas Castle. He's newly assigned to the squadron and I'm sticking him with you. He was sent to us early, and he'll be taking over your section when you transfer out."

"Glad to have him aboard, Senior Chief," Ortega smiled. Heathrow excused himself and retreated from the room. Ortega turned to the other airmen in the shop. "Hey, people. Knock it off a sec, a'ight! We got a new guy!" All work ceased, and the other men and women came quickly forward. "Guys, this is Petty Officer Thomas Castle. Castle, I'm Dolores Ortega. I run PR section six." She motioned to the first of John's new colleagues, a tall, skinny black kid who was maybe twenty, and proceeded to introduce him and some of his more embarrassing qualities. "This is Airman Jordan Wilkins. We call him Slim around here. He's got a good singing voice, but he'll sing all day about nothing and sometimes I can't get him to shut the fuck up."

"What up, PO?" Wilkins shook John's hand.

Next was a tall, athletic girl with curly blonde hair and an LA tan, "This is Airman Kristina Heartin. She's from Hollywood. She may be a blonde, but she's pretty intelligent. Rumor says she's Harvard bound when she gets out."

"Petty Officer." Airman Heartin greeted, shaking his hand and nodding.

A stocky Caucasian kid with a chiseled face and deep-set brown eyes stepped forward. Ortega introduced him. "This is Airman Robby Crocker. He occasionally answers to Cave Man. Spend enough time around him and you'll know why."

"Hey," Crocker greeted in a slow, heavy voice. John got the impression he wasn't all there.

"And finally, this young lady that I was givin' the what-for is Airmen Jennifer Chung. She ain't never had a hair cut before. She can keep it, too, so long as it stays off her collar while in uniform. She won't show us it though, so we got a bet going on how long it is. She ain't never had a boyfriend either. And despite that she can be a general airhead, she's the best hand at a sewing machine in the whole damn department."

"Nice to meet you, Petty Officer Castle," Jennifer Chung's supple lips became a smile on her brown face that revealed sparkly white teeth. Her almond eyes shimmered beneath the glasses as she extended her hand.

"The same," John managed as her shook her hand, noticing her palm to be soft, "for all of you. Please, guys, call me Tommy."

"Petty Officer Castle will be taking over for me after I leave, okay?" Ortega told them, "so show him the same respect… wait, scratch that, show him the respect appropriate for his position, which is more than any of you ever gave me." She chuckled at that, and the others smiled as well. "Okay, fun's over. Let's go back to work. C'mon, Tommy, I'm retaping some helmets here. You can help me out with that."

"Sure thing," John replied, and followed. He watched Airman Chung go back to her sewing machine and pick up a seam ripper. She looked up at him, found him watching, and smiled a blushing smile as she went back to her work. John turned to pay attention to Ortega as she handed him a naked shell and a roll of white reflective tape, and didn't notice Chung stealing another glance at him over her shoulder as she plucked up the seams she had sewn, freeing the blade-shaped buckle from the strap.

...

"Gypsy Two-Zero-Four, Oceana Control, cleared into the break." The approach controller's voice sounded muffled over the radio, muffled and bored, as he cleared the Super Hornet into the landing pattern. The break was a type of approach that military aircraft used to conserve fuel while bleeding airspeed and altitude. It also allowed aircraft in formation to separate neatly out into single file so that each plane may land one at a time. It comprised of flying in formation directly adjacent to the field. After passing the Initial Point, an easily recognizable landmark near the airport, the aircraft will turn directly for the runway threshold. Once adjacent to the opposite end of the runway, the pilot will perform the break, violently turning one-hundred eighty degrees and lining up on a reciprocal course with the runway to be used, displaced by about two miles. After passing the end of the runway again, the pilot configures for landing and makes a lazier one-eighty for line-up, called the base turn, and makes the final approach.

The pilot of Gypsy 204 looked to his right and aft, where the aircraft on his wing was flying loose deuce. He brought up his right hand, tapped his oxygen mask on the black amp block in front of the nose bulge, and waved his hand palm out, fingers splayed open. This was the kiss off, the indication that he was departing formation. "Two-Oh-Four in the break," he told control in his Bostonian accent and he rolled the aircraft onto its left wing and broke hard, separating from his wingman. The wingie would make a three-potato count and then follow his lead, falling into a quarter-mile trail that would grow as the turns continued. The pilot steadied up on 140 degrees, now parallel and on a reciprocal course to the runway he would land on. He reached up to the right side of his helmet with this throttle hand and pulled the release tab to the bayonet clip there that held his oxygen mask in place. It slid out of the receiver and he let the grey MBU-14 dangle from the left side of the helmet by the other bayonet clip and receiver.

He set his flaps to manual full and slapped the gear handle to the down position. The actuators whined and he felt the increased wind resistance as the gear came down and locked into place. All the appropriate indicators showed green. He then made his base turn, languidly turning the fighter with his rudder and a little aileron to line up perfectly with runway 32R His instrument landing system projected the needles (thin green lines that formed a cross shape to show his line-up) revealing him to be just a hair off centerline, while the angle-of-attack indicator next to the HUD showed a lit yellow circle. "Oceana, Gypsy 204 on final."

"Gypsy 204, Oceana Control, you are cleared for landing on runway three-two-right. Winds are from the south at two knots, gusting to five. Once down, contact Oceana Taxi on the one-one-four-dot-six-seven-zero." Good, the cross-wind was minimal. This was going to be easy. He was on glideslope, and with a speed of 136 knots, he was just two knots faster than the ideal. He adjusted by throttling back just a notch, and the twin General Electric F414 turbofan engines responded quickly. He was at fifteen percent RPM and everything looked good. From his perspective, the runway rose up with the Earth, reaching out to catch him.

The fifty-five million dollar jet touched down right on the numbers without so much as a squeal, and the only indication that the two-man plane was no longer falling was the feeling in their stomachs. The pilot applied air and wheel brakes, letting the plane roll out gently until it came to a complete stop.

"Shit, Muck," the WSO said, "I think that was the best landing you've ever had."

The pilot, Lieutenant Commander Jonathan "Muck" McCowen shook his head, "nah, I was five feet off centerline to the left. Can't you tell?" He unlocked the nose wheel and goosed the throttle, using the rudder pedals to steer off of the runway and onto the taxiway, clearing the path for their wingman in 210 to land.

"Hey, man," his WSO, Lieutenant Harry "Butch" Cassidy replied, "any landing you can use the jet again…"

"I know, I know," Muck chuckled, "is a good one." He reached up to the center of the four large CRT multifunction displays. Unlike the other three, two flanking and one beneath, this display was a touch-screen. He selected the radio menu and chose channel 2, and punched in 114.670 MHz as the frequency, replacing the one he had used to talk to Oceana Control. "Oceana Taxi, this is Gypsy 204, requesting clearance to taxi to western tarmac."

"204, Oceana Taxi," a very bored-sounding female voice answered, "good morning again, sir. Please turn left onto runway two-three-left and proceed to taxiway one. Turn right onto the taxiway and follow it to taxiway two. Hold short there for priority traffic. You are clear to taxi now…"

...

Ten minutes later, after taxiing across the base and holding for a C-130 before continuing their way, the two Rhinos were parked in the VFA-32 row, their wings folded and their engines shut down. Muck and Butch unbuckled their torso harness Koch fittings from the seat restraints as a plane crew swarmed over the grey fighter to perform their various duties; safing the ejection seats, chocking the wheels, and lowering the integrated boarding ladder for the aviators. Muck let Butch climb down first.

"Good flying, sir?" the plane captain, Petty Officer Robby Zatanno, asked as the aircrew's boots felt ground.

"She flew like a dream," Muck responded as he slid the other bayonet clip from the receiver, letting the oxygen mask dangle from his helmet by the communications pigtail, "handles real well."

"Any BGCs, sir?" the young man asked of bitches, gripes, and complaints, anything that might be mechanically wrong with the aircraft.

Muck shook his head, but Butch spoke up, "I was having trouble with the hat switch on the radar stick. It seemed like it wanted to keep slewing when I had stopped input. Sometimes I had to flick it the other direction a second to stop it. But it was no big deal. She's an up jet."

The plane captain nodded, agreeing with their assessment. He let the two aviators walk away, satisfied that the plane was in good working order. Muck unplugged the mask pigtail from the helmet plug and shoved a bayonet clip through one of the MOLLE loops in his survival vest. He tore his gloves off and stuffed them into his helmet bag, then pulled the HGU-68 from his head, shoving it onto the green nomex bag as well. He revealed a slim face, with blue eyes and closely-cropped sandy hair. His nose was half-a-size larger than it should have been, and the bridge of it and his cheeks were marked with a deep red line that the oxygen mask often left when it had been worn for several hours. Butch would see this and just as likely tell him to upgrade to the newer and more comfortable MBU-24, but Muck was just as happy with the older unit. It worked fine. Besides, the new mask with its off-set hose, black hard shell, and flimsy-looking strap assembly did not really appeal to him.

Fortunately, Butch was currently too busy following Muck's example to chide him, tucking his helmet and gloves away and revealing his crew-cut black hair and equally black eyes. Muck liked Butch. They had started flying together a couple years ago during the work-ups before then VF-32's OIF cruise and had just clicked well as a team. They had spent most of their time with the squadron under the same canopy, and Muck was impressed with Butch's tactical acumen and his skill at delivering the laser-guided ordinance they had expended while supporting OEF.

The two aviators joined up with Scum and Flower, the crew of Gypsy 210 that had flown their wing for this hop. Scum was black, and was built as if he should have played pro football, but at five-foot-eleven, he really wasn't tall enough. His callsign came from some kind of sinus infection he had gotten during his first cruise, when he had been coughing up mucous the color of pond scum. His WSO, Flower, was a slim little brunette who was in her late twenties, but looked as if she had just entered her mid teens. She had a quick temper, and was a black belt in Judo, but she still looked like a delicate flower of a girl, and thus her callsign.

"God damn, Muck," Scum said, whipping the sweat from his bald head, "three bulls-eyes and a lethal near miss? Are you sure you weren't using guided bombs?" The two Super Hornets had just returned from a flight dropping trainer bombs on the range in Dare County, North Carolina.

Muck chuckled. It was bad form to brag in anything more than a professional manner. "My CCIP was working pretty good," the pilot replied, referencing the Continuously Computed Impact Point generated by the HUD to indicate where a free-fall bomb dropped from the plane would impact. "It's accurate as hell. If you get that lined up perfect and there's no crosswind, your bombs will fall right where it says so."

They walked into the hanger from the heat of the tarmac, not that it helped much, but at least the sun wasn't beating down on them any more, and crossed underneath aircraft 211, which was currently having its engines serviced. From here, they entered the door to the paraloft, the locker room where their flight gear was stored. Helmet bags with helmets and oxygen masks went in appropriate cubby holes. Survival vests, torso harnesses, and anti-g trousers were all removed and hung up, until the crews stood in their bare flight suits. Muck stretched and rolled the sleeves of his CWU-27 up and zipped it down to his chest, making visible his sweat-soaked squadron t-shirt. All the others did the same, and they made their way to the squadron ready room, the hub of squadron activity.

Muck wasn't paying any attention to anyone in the room. He made his way over to the duty desk, greeted Fungus, and pulled the maintenance folder for 204 off the wall. He flipped over to the gripes list and wrote down what Butch had said earlier about the radar slew, then folded the booklet back up and hung it back on the board again.

"Did you put in that thing about the radar?" Butch asked him as he made for a chair, fresh cup of coffee in his hand.

"Yeah," Muck nodded, scratching his sweaty hair. It was then that he noticed a woman, almost a girl, dressed in duty whites and fingering a combination cover in her hands, almost absentmindedly. He noticed her eyes, deep brown, curious, and seemingly vapid in a way that bothered him. She had the type of eyes that belonged to a person who would kill you just because and not feel a thing while doing it.

"Hey, Muck, how'd it go?" Fungus asked.

Muck turned around, leaning in close so that the freaky woman didn't hear. "Hey, Fungus, who the hell is that?"

"Oh, her?" Fungus asked, "that's Erin Parker. She's the new intelligence officer for the squadron."

"That explains the creepy factor."

"Yeah," Fungus nodded, "I expect some of the ONI people to be strange, but she's a cake-topper my friend."

"Muck!" he heard the CO's voice, and whipped about to find Commander Morgan standing in the door. The CO was smiling in that evil way he smiled when he had a task for someone, something that might be kinda fun. "Just the guy I wanted to see."

"What can I do for you, skipper?"

Morgs stepped into the room and put his hand on the new girl's shoulder, bidding her to come with him. The two approached, and Muck felt the need to back away from this Parker person. She looked up at him with her empty eyes and pouty lips, and he thought she'd be very pretty if she didn't look like she was still scratching the bottom of twenty years old. That and if her eyes weren't little brown vacuums beneath her brows.

"You've met Lieutenant Parker, I'm sure." Morgs gestured. Parker extended a hand.

"No," Muck replied, "I'm afraid I haven't." And he took her hand, noticing that her skin was as soft as her grip was firm. "Nice to meet you, lieutenant."

"Nice to meet you, commander."

"Muck is our Ops O, our operations officer," Morgs explained, "he's responsible for making sure that all of us have enough to do."

"Well," Much shrugged, "can't do all the flying myself." He and Morgs chuckled a little at that. Parker's face was flaccid, and it made Muck uncomfortable enough to stop.

"Parker here is our new Intel Officer," Morgs told him, "she needs a couple of familiarization hops. I can trust you to handle that, can't I?" So that's what this was about. In a way, the skipper had just given Muck a compliment, indicating that he believed the Ops O to be the most solid pilot in the squadron. It meant that he would be flying again sooner than later, but it also meant more work. He would be responsible for the safety of this person and the airplane they were riding in. It didn't take him long to remember an occasion where a surface warfare officer on a familiarization flight in an F-14D had accidentally ejected himself from the jet. The pilot had been forced to fly the plane back to base without a canopy. The Navy had written the jet off, striking it from inventory and cannibalizing it for parts. It was a firm reminder that it didn't take an enemy weapon or poor maintenance to take a plane down. Sometimes, all it took was one idiot unfamiliar with the cockpit.

Still, Muck was being asked to do something in a way that implied it were an order to do so. He could still say no this way, as the CO had not outright obliged him to do this thing, but it would look awfully bad in the skipper's eyes if he refused. So he nodded, smiling over gritted teeth, and said "yeah, I can do that. When? Tomorrow?"

"I can't tomorrow," Parker replied, "the movers are delivering my furniture. I need to be there."

"Wednesday, then?"

"That would be acceptable."

"Great!" Morgs slapped Muck on the shoulder, "I knew I could rely on you." And he walked out, probably headed for his office. Well damn, this meant Muck would have to rewrite the flight schedule for the week. Again. "So, do you have any questions for me?" He asked Parker as he mentally began to move crews around on the schedule.

Parker looked thoughtful for a moment, then asked "what should I do to prepare myself to fly?"

Muck smirked, "try bananas for breakfast."

"Why bananas?"

"Because they taste the same coming up as they do going down."

"Oh," Parker replied, apparently unfazed by this, "thank you for explaining."

...

Cameron Phillips and John Connor met back at Parker's apartment that evening. John had actually bussed this time while Cameron drove. Cameron had laid claim to it that morning before picking up John from the hotel as he checked out. It was bare except for a sleeping bag and a pair of suitcases, but that would all change tomorrow.

"You were supposed to be here at eight o'clock." Cameron said as John walked in and flopped down on the floor. She had been standing next to the window, waiting for him to arrive.

"I went and got some chow with my maintenance section leader after shift change," John told her. "What, were you worried?"

Cameron considered his question. Her answer was in fact both yes and no. Yes, because her primary mission was to protect him and his absence was of great concern to her ability to fulfill her objectives. No, because as a machine she was unable to feel attachment to him in any emotional way. Her desire to be with him stemmed entirely from her drive to adequately and successfully perform her duty to protect him, and any time he was away from her was time in which he was vulnerable to attack and thus threatening her ability to perform her given assignment. The performance of her assignment was her purpose, it was why she existed. She existed to protect John Connor. That was priority over all other concerns. Still, he demanded an answer, and logically, her answer should be that which aided her in her responsibilities. "Yes, I was worried." She noted that his face seemed to light a little when she responded.

"How was your day?" John asked her, conversationally.

Cameron reported "I have successfully begun the process of integrating myself into VFA-32. There are some particular activities I must partake in before I will be considered a completely active member of the unit. However, I foresee these activities will not be particularly tasking and that I will accomplish this portion of our mission easily."

"So it went well?"

"Yes," she added a single nod, "it went well."

John's mouth formed a smirk. Somehow, he was dissatisfied with her answer, though Cameron could not determine exactly what was inadequate about her response to his question. It could have something to do with his feelings for her. John had exhibited romantic inclinations towards her since the beginning. He had been deterred for a while after realizing that she was a machine, and had only taken to defending her from abuse by his mother and Derek. Eventually, though, he had initiated intimate contact with her on a few occasions, most notably when he had stroked her hair as she rebooted from their mission to disable the ARTIE system. "What are they expecting you to do?" he said before she could pursue the process further.

"I am expected to fly with Lieutenant Commander Muck McCowen on two occasions in order to understand the mission capabilities and processes of the squadron. At least, that is what the commanding officer claims. I expect that his efforts are partially to teach me those capabilities and processes, and partially to initiate me into the squadron through a humiliating right of passage. I have done research on this and have discovered that generally induction into such fraternities as those of fighting men does not come without some," she paused, searching for a term, "hazing."

"Humiliating? How? They're taking you up in a supersonic jet fighter!"

"I believe that Commander Morgan, the squadron CO, expects that the flight maneuvers will cause emesis, which is not uncommon among the uninitiated. There are twenty-two cases that I was able to find of journalists, athletes, comedians, and other individuals not associated with military aviation recounting stories of their experiences. Fully seventy percent of these cases involved the subject vomiting during the flight. I am to understand that even a large percentage of flight school entrants experience some degree of nausea during their first flights."

"They expect you to puke yourself," John found a chuckle within him, and let it out, "what else are you supposed to do?"

"Muck indicated that I am required to consume bananas before I fly."

"Bananas?"

"It has to do with flavor."

Before he could ask, John's cell phone rang, and he dug into his pocket to pull it out. "Hello?"

The phone beeped two tones. It was his mother.

John pressed the seven and five, as per code.

"Hi," she greeted, "we're here. Cameron indicated that we should stay close by but not with you. We rented a condo on the beach. Are the two of you free to come by?"

"Sure, we were just talking about mission stuff."

"Glad you're so focused. Look, get a pen and paper and let me give you the address…"

...

The condominium complex was the Dolphin Run on 3rd and Atlantic, next to the Rudee Inlet. There was a nice pool out front, and it overlooked the beach and the boardwalk, and a marina was nearby. Prime property, John thought, as he and Cameron pulled in. They emerged from her car and walked up to the building, easily finding the door. John knocked, and they waited a couple of seconds. The door opened, and Sarah Connor stood inside. She reached for her son, pulling him in and placing a kiss on his forehead.

"John," she said into his hair.

"Hey, Mom," he greeted. She squeezed on him for a few more seconds before letting him go, and motioned for him to head into the living room. Behind him, he heard her greet Cameron much less warmly. He found Derek sitting on the couch, watching TV.

"Hey, kid," the grizzled fighter greeted.

"Hey, Derek." John returned. He sat down in a love seat to see what his uncle was watching. "What's on?"

"_The Lost World_."

"That was an awful movie," the boy shook his head.

"I kinda liked it when it first came out."

"Yeah, but you were a kid then."

Derek shrugged, "I just turned it on." He looked up and saw Cameron walk in, followed by Sarah. He said of the terminator, "looks like you made it okay."

"Yes," Cameron nodded, "thank you."

"How was the drive?" Sarah asked.

"Fine," the cyborg responded, "everything was successful."

"It was hot in Topeka." John added. Derek chuckled, and that made John smile some, knowing that the man got it.

"That's what Derek kept whining when we were driving through," Sarah gestured to him and made an impersonation, "It's hot in Topeka. It's _hot_ in Topeka. That's all I heard. That and how it was showering in Spokane."

Derek protested, "but it _was_ hot in Topeka!" And he and John were rendered into snickers again.

"It was not, Derek Reese!" Sarah snapped, "It was overcast and seventy-six!" She looked at Cameron and gestured at the two boys. "Christ, it's like they get it from somewhere!"

Cameron looked at the two males as they shared knowing glances and swallowed laughter. In a surprisingly human gesture, she skewed her lips and shrugged a shoulder at Sarah, indicating that she had no clue as to what they were on about. "Humans find comfort in humor. This, I believe, is what is known as an inside joke."

Sarah let out a long sigh and made an agreeing nod. Cameron was probably perfectly correct. "Anyway, so, how is the infiltration going?"

"I believe I am nearly integrated into Strike Fighter Squadron Thirty-Two," the terminator told her, "John has also successfully integrated himself into the maintenance division."

"Really?" Sarah looked over at her son, "they buy that you're a twenty-two year old petty officer?"

John shrugged, eyes focused on the television, "hey, I spent all day taping helmet shells and attaching ear cups on the insides with Velcro. I think they believe I am who I say I am. My insertion worked like a charm, too. The maintenance officer was giving an earful to my department leader about it. I'm there to stay."

Sarah was glad of that. "Meet any pretty girls?" Why did she have to ask this question of every new place he went?

His eyes automatically flicked to Cameron, who appeared just as equally interested in his answer. He looked away from them, back at the television, feeling the heat crawl up his neck from beneath the collar of his t-shirt. "No. Besides, what with the fraternization policy and all, I don't want to get in trouble."

Cameron leaned into Sarah and whispered to her "He's lying. His surface temperature went up a half of a degree when you…"

Sarah leered at her and rolled her eyes, "I'm his mom. I know."

"So," Derek piped up as one of the two T-Rexes on the screen kicked Ian Malcolm's trailer on its side "what happens tomorrow?"

"I go back to work," John said, "and Erin Parker gets her furniture."

"What do we do?" Sarah inquired.

"Stand by until we need you, I guess."

"No," Cameron said, "I managed to find Brian Wiley's personal information. I will need you to scout out his home, see if there is any way he might be vulnerable there."

"That we can do," Sarah agreed, "that we can do."

...

Whew! That was a long one. Just before anyone asks, I'll have to remind you that Robby Crocker and Jennifer Chung are both based on real people. Crocker is based off a techie I knew when doing College-level theater. Chung, on the other hand, is based off of a young lady I knew who is in the Navy, and yes, everything I said about her was true when we met.


	6. Earth and Sky

Sorry it's been a while since I updated. Life has been… itself an unusually large amount lately.

Once again, thanks to all who have written reviews. They are most helpful. Though I am a student of military aviation, I must admit a certain weakness in the area of medical science. Please forgive me and thank you for the correction.

Okay, now to disappoint some of you. For those of you who signed on thinking that the kiss in the first chapter meant that this was a Jameron story, I must disappoint you. It isn't. I'm not going to give you any more Jameron than was given during the series. I AM promising a sequel to this one, and more of those elements will be present.

I admit I am somewhat loathe to post this chapter, as it does contain one of the most humanizing moments I give Cameron. This being a post-bomb story, she's still a little haywire and being a mind of sorts she is not above the philosophical. Some of the ideas she has are NOT ideas that I consider possible in any fashion, but I'm not her.

At any rate, enjoy.

P.S. Catherine Weaver's behavior DOES get explained in a later chapter.

...

Chapter 5: Earth and Sky

"The air up there in the clouds is very pure and fine, bracing and delicious. And why shouldn't it be? - it is the same the angels breathe."

-Mark Twain, "Roughing It"

"Launch the Alert Five, launch the Alert Five!" the voice over the 1MC was tinny and urgent, shouting the order across the deck of the aircraft carrier _USS Enterprise_. It was a beautiful day in the mid-Atlantic, cloudless and comfortably warm. The wind had been coming over the deck in quite a clip, and brought with it the fresh smell of salty air. The alert aircraft were already manned up and had been awaiting this possibility, not at all expecting it to become real. Yet here they were, firing up their turbine engines and preparing to launch. Beneath the feet of the deck crew and the wheels of the aircraft, the eighty-thousand ton vessel wheeled in the ocean waves and increased its speed, turning its bow into the wind to ensure that the aircraft got the maximum amount of help into the air.

On catapult three on the waist deck, the canopy of a newly-started F/A-18F swung downward until it contacted the rail and then slid forward into the locked position. The aircraft was number one-fourteen. Her tail was emblazoned with the checker-board rudder and check-mark of Strike Fighter Squadron Two-Eleven, the Fighting Checkmates. The two-letter tail code, AB, indicated that she was part of Carrier Air Wing One, the embarked CVW aboard _Enterprise_. At the behest of the catapult officer, the ghost grey fighter rolled into position on the catapult track, her nose gear tow bar locking into the shuttle that would soon sling the aircraft into the sky and towards the unknown emergency. On the order, elevators, ailerons, and rudders all danced about in a show of operational readiness. Flaps were set to manual full. The pilot and WSO raised their arms up over their heads, showing that the catapult officer that their hands were not on any of the controls that would be responsible for firing a weapon. Meanwhile, red-shirted ordinance men raced up to the jet, pulling out the crank-shaped arming pins of the AiM-9X Sidewinders on the wingtip rails and the AiM-120C AMRAAM in the recessed hard points on the fuselage. This aircraft also carried a single 480-gallon drop tank on the centerline station, extra fuel to feed the thirsty General Electric turbofans and give the jet more time in the air. The ordies completed their task, red Remove Before Flight tags dangling from the pins fluttered in the stiff breeze as they retreated form the plane.

The catapult officer raised his hand up, pointing his index finger skyward. The pilot shoved the throttles forward to the stops, pushed outboard, and then into zone five afterburner. The hungry howl of the engines became a deafening scream and grew into a thunderous roar as hot orange flame shot out of the nozzles and licked at the raised jet blast deflector. The pilot gave one more look about at his instruments and saluted the cat officer before placing his hands on the handles. They had needed to be ready for launch in five minutes. They were ready in four and a half. The cat officer returned the salute, checked the length of the catapult track for obstructions, and leaned forward to touch the deck. One-potato, two-potato, three-potato… fire!

Catapult Three and One fired almost simultaneously, launching numbers 114 and its fellow aircraft 107 into the air nearly at the same time. The two Rhinos curled away to the left as one, riding the twin flames of their afterburners. On deck, a pair of F/A-18Cs from Marine Strike Fighter Squadron Two-Fifty-One on cats two and four were given the order to throttle up.

The two Checkmate jets formed up and continued their climb to ten thousand feet. 114 took the lead position, with 107 flying off the left wing. The WSO of 114 checked in with the orbiting E-2 Hawkeye radar plane. "Screwtop Six-Oh-Three, Nickel One-One-Four. We're airborne now, headed zero-seven-seven at three-five-zero, angels ten and noses up." He gave the radar plane the information for his two aircraft, showing that they were on a course of seventy-seven degrees, traveling at a speed of three-hundred fifty knots and at an altitude of ten-thousand feet and ascending.

"Nickel 114, 603, come left to 035, continue ascent to angels 20."

"114," the WSO replied, vexed by the terse nature of 603's reply. He keyed his intercom system and said to the pilot "I wonder what gives."

"Probably an intercept," the pilot responded as he twisted the lock-knob for the visor on his HGU-68 flight helmet to allow it to slide on the track. It dropped into place, contacting perfectly with the facepiece of the MBU-14 oxygen mask and he tightened the knob back down.

"You think it's for real, Cheeks?" the WSO sounded no more excited about this possibility than he might have sounded about having sat the remaining hour of the alert watch.

"Dunno, Fletch, Probably an airliner," the pilot, Cheeks, said, "or a drill." The two became silent a moment as they heard the Marine Hornets, Tbolt 202 and 213, check in with the Hawkeye.

"Nickel 114, Screwtop 603," the AWACS plane's controller addressed them, "looks like we've got a couple of stray Bears bearing 035 degrees for 110 miles, heading 190, speed 275, angels appears to be about twenty-two. Alpha Bravo directs you intercept and escort them away. Tbolts 202 and 213 will play goalie for you incase they slip buy." The leathernecks would take up the slack _if they got by_? What the hell kind of Navy was this where the jarhead flyers did the work? Getting by, fuck that!

"114 copies, 603," the Fletch shook his head and brought the Raytheon APG-73 radar out of standby to begin emitting. VFA-211 was operating the earlier model of the Foxtrot, and so was not equipped with the newer APG-79 AESA radar. The -73 had an outside range of about eighty miles and could only engage two targets at a time, but this was not really an issue as of yet, and all of the Super Hornets would be equipped with the AESA by 2010. He switched to Track-While-Scan mode on the I-band pulse-Doppler unit and set the aperture to focus between sixteen and twenty-six thousand feet altitude at maximum range. On his Primary Tactical Information Display, the largest and centermost of the four multifunction displays on his panel, the radar screen was marked in a scaled grid, with a sweep indication line dancing quickly back and forth on a sixty-degree cone, showing nothing as of yet, but that would change soon enough. He could feel himself getting excited. He had never actually seen a Russian aircraft up close before! He fished around in his survival vest for the digital Nikon camera that he would use to take pictures of it with. Maybe he would photograph some new feature of the plane that analysts could use for intelligence. Maybe, but not likely. He looked down at the radar just as a single green dot took shape at the top of the screen, at the farthest range. As the radar pulse swept over it again, and then again, the dot turned into a small box with the number 1 in the middle and directional line indicating course and speed. "Contact! Nickel 114 has bogeys, zero-three-five for seven-nine! Course one-niner-zero, speed two-seven-five."

In the front seat, Cheeks saw the same image on his right multifunction display as Fletch did in the back. It was convenient to have a repeater for the radar. The pilot could know everything the guy in back did with a quick twitch of his eyes. The Rhino was nose up, now, climbing through angels fifteen. This intercept would probably end up in nothing more than a few tense minutes trying to steer the Russian patrol plane away while it tried to take pictures of the aircraft carrier. The Americans would also photograph it. In decades past, deployed carriers would head east out of Norfolk or west from San Diego chasing the cover of weather systems, putting clouds between them and the prying eyes of Soviet spy satellites. The Russians would try to pinpoint the American task forces with long-range patrol bombers like the Tu-95 Bear, just to show that they could find and attack the valuable ships. Americans in turn would launch planes and intercept the bombers long before they were in weapons range, just to show the Russians that their bombers wouldn't even get close enough to perform such an attack. I see yours and you see mine. It was a game that had been played for years during the Cold War, but had not been much of a factor for nearly twenty years now, not since the collapse of the Soviet Union. But lately, the overflights had been renewed with greater intensity than before. Just earlier this year, the USS_ Nimitz_ had been forced to turn away Russian planes on two separate occasions. The patrols were thanks to the efforts of Russia's previous president. That man, the pilot thought, was a patriot who tried through human failings to put his country first as any respectable leader might. And if these renewed patrols helped the Russian people feel good about their country, helped build faith in their leadership and their economy, and helped them prosper than so be it. He would be out here, on the pointy end, ready to make sure they did nothing more with their newfound national pride than take innocent pictures almost as detailed as any that were available on the Navy website.

"Do you have your recorder on?" Cheeks asked Fletch of the recording device that would tape all radio transmissions and intercom traffic. It had proved vital in past intercepts, most notably the 1989 engagement between F-14A Tomcats of VF-32 flying from the _USS John F. Kennedy_ and Libyan MiG-23s, which had resulted in the destruction of the two Russian-built "Floggers." When the US had been challenged at the United Nations by the Libyan ambassador, audio and video recordings from the lead Navy aircraft had proven the Libyan intentions may not have been so innocent as they were claiming. The lead RIO's commentary, step-by-step, of each maneuver made by the Tomcats and then the responding action made by the MiGs had revealed potentially sinister intentions as the Libyan planes constantly adjusted to bring the F-14s noses on while the F-14s made efforts to offset their pass, turning right and left, noses away from the enemy, in an effort to assure that they had no intentions of engaging unless threatened. Now, in Nickel 114, the pilot flicked on his gun camera as the WSO behind him activated the recording device.

"Contacts are at seven-zero miles, now," Fletch said, "course still one-niner zero, speed three-hundred, angels now are at twenty."

"114, 107 has bogeys as a two-ship," the back-seater from the other aircraft called over the radio, "looks like the second one is trailing by about two miles."

"Roger that. I've got him."

"Alpha-Bravo, Screwtop, do you copy?" they heard one of the controllers on the Hawkeye call down to the carrier. This message was directed to the CAG, the commander of the air group, who was referred to over the radio as Alpha-Bravo. The CAG would be monitoring the intercept from the Carrier Combat Information Center, or CVIC. It was asking whether he copied the transmissions being made between the fighters, from the fighters to the Hawkeye, and to the ship.

"They appear to be headed straight for the Boat." those attached to the air wing, and aviators especially, took to referring to the carrier as "the Boat" to piss off the surface Navy pukes, who thought of it as a ship like any sane person. "We've been on EMCON since we left port, haven't we? Wonder how they found us." The pilot said, "do you know if they've used their onboard radars at all." EMCON was emissions control. Essentially, the carrier and surrounding battle group made as few electronic emissions through use of radar as possible, since these emissions could be detected, tracked, and pinpointed by an aircraft, a ship, or a submarine with appropriate receiving antennae.

"Dunno," the WSO replied, "lemme find out. 603, 114, have these guys had their radars active? They're heading straight for the Boat."

"114, wait one." There was a long and heavy pause, and the controller was probably asking someone else on the E-2.

"They're not using trawlers anymore." The pilot stated, referring to the old Soviet tactic of using fishing trawlers to follow aircraft carriers, photograph them, and relay their positional data. The trawlers had been a thorn in the side of the Navy for a while, because it was obvious that these fishing boats were not fishing and not intended for fishing, festooned as they were with whip antennae and other recording equipment used for intelligence gathering.

"No," Fletch confirmed, "at least I haven't ever seen one following the Boat."

"114, 603, that's a negative on the emissions from bogeys."

"Submarine," Cheeks thought aloud.

"Yeah," Fletch agreed, "bogeys are at six-zero miles, speed three-hundred, course one-niner-zero, and in the descent. Angels looks like nineteen now. We're going down to eighteen." The last part was in a way a command to the pilot to do something by way of expressed intention to their controller. It was the WSO in the lead jet, not the pilot, which commanded intercepts.

"107, go trail." Cheeks told their wingman.

"Roger, 107 going trail." The pilot of that plane retarded his throttles, and Cheeks saw him slide aft in the corner of his eye. 114 moved out ahead of the other jet, which fell a mile in trail. "107 is in position."

"Bogeys are at five-zero miles, speed three-one-five, course still one-niner-zero, angels… ah… seventeen and in the descent." Fletch said, "Cheeks, take us down to twelve."

"Roger," and the pilot pushed the stick forward, pushing the nose of their Rhino down five degrees, an easy, steady rate of descent. "Think they know we're up here?"

Fletch nodded, visible in the rearview mirror, "our radar's on. We're emitting. Those bombers are going to have radar warning receivers. They aren't worth a damn if they don't."

"Right." If they had been really, really smart, or just plain mean, the two Super Hornets would have kept their radars off. The Hawkeye would have guided them to the intercept with its own powerful sensors while the fighters kept their noses cold, invisible to the crews of the bombers. They would probably have rolled in behind them, each Navy jet to a Russian, and would have just appeared out of nowhere, APGs hot and locked up. That would have been the way it was done during the Cold War. But not now. Now, that would just be seen as naked aggression and airborne bullying. Now, it was just a matter of tag-you're-it play, even though the consequences were matters of national pride and military readiness. But here everyone's cards were on the table, and it was how they were played that mattered.

"One-One-Four, four-zero miles now, angles at fifteen. Speed still three-one-five. No course change..."

"Alpha-Bravo, Screwtop, you copy?" came the question again for the CAG, interrupting Fletch's words.

The WSO let out a sigh, then continued "okay, let's come starboard ten degrees, we'll take them offset down the left side."

"Roger," Cheeks replied as he rolled the jet a little and let it drift into the directed course.

"Nickel 114, 603, say angels." The Hawkeye wanted to know their altitude, probably for the sake of those back onboard the Boat.

"We're at angels fifteen, nose down. I'm going down to twelve."

"No," the controller said, "his angels."

Oh, they wanted to know the bogey's altitude. "Angels are at fifteen. They are at three-five miles, speed three-fifteen, that is three-one-five."

"Roger, 114," the controller responded.

"Screwtop, Alpha-Bravo directs warning green, weapons hold. I repeat; warning green, weapons hold. Alpha-Bravo, out." The gravelly voice belonged to none other than the CAG, who had finally broken onto the radio to inform the crews they did not have clearance to release weapons under any circumstances without direct orders to do so. Cheeks and Fletch both heard it, and both pilot and WSO took quick glances at their master arm switches to ensure it was in the off position.

"Roger," the controller aboard the Hawkeye said, "Nickels, passing on, Alpha-Bravo directs warning green, weapons hold."

"Roger that," Fletch replied, "bogeys are at three-zero miles, now. Course is unchanged at one-niner-zero, speed still three-one-five, angels still fifteen." There was definitely no real threat here. The Bears knew the Rhinos were coming. They weren't even making any efforts to evade the intercepting Navy fighters. Everybody was relaxed. We are all friends here. They just want to take some innocent pictures…

"Alpha-Bravo, Screwtop, you copy?"

"Nickels, Tbolt 202, we're going racetrack at three-zero miles from Climax, at angels twenty, nose cold." The Marine section leader told them, indicating that the two older Hornets would be circling thirty-miles from the Boat and twenty-thousand feet with their radars off, just in case the bombers thought they could break away from the Super Hornets and make for the Boat.

"Roger that," Fletch acknowledged, "bogeys now at two-zero miles. One-one-four will make an ID pass and join up on the trailer. One-zero-seven will take the lead."

"107." The other jet recognized their orders and replied.

Fletch fumbled for his camera, making sure that the Nikon digital was on and functioning. He picked the proper mode for high-speed photos and ensured that the flash would be off. The light from it would cause glare on the canopy and could startle or blind the pilot, and might even make the Russians think that the Americans were shooting at them.

All set, he glanced at his TID again. "Bogeys at one-five miles… they have accelerated to three-two-five. They appear to the jinking port, our port. Looks like they're turning off. Course is two-zero-zero. Twelve miles… eleven miles… ten…" And he began to count down as they closed.

"Alpha-Bravo, Screwtop, you copy?"

"…niner miles… eight miles."

Ahead of them, through his heads-up display, Cheeks could make out long hazy lines in the sky, being drawn by a tiny dark speck. The piston engines of the Tupolev Tu-95 put out a lot of smoke, and it could be seen for quite a distance. "Tally one! Tally one in the contrails!" Just as he said this, he saw a sparkling flash shine out from the speck, the sun glinting off the naked metal finish of the Russian machine.

"…six miles," Fletch continued, "five miles… four miles, he's heading at two-two-zero… three miles…" Cheeks could see it now, the long thin fuselage and wide wingspan of the graceful silver bomber. The four engines turned the eight propellers and belched out streams of ashen exhaust. The big plane was it a shallow turn, and he got something of a plan view as he closed on it. It grew in his vision until it flashed down his left side, still in its gentle turn. He was positively able to identify it as a Bear, the NATO callsign for this particular type of airplane. He retarded his throttles and popped out his speedbrakes, rolling in an opposing gentle turn as they neared the second bomber. The sunlight flashed off the bare aluminum tail and he settled just ahead of and slightly beneath the left wing as the Russian steadied up on his new course of two-four-five. It appeared that they were conceding the intercept at this time, admitting that aha, the Americans had gotten them. He saw the Russian pilot look out on his window at the Navy jet. The man smiled a little, and waved. Cheeks returned the gesture, though smiling was useless when his face was covered with his oxygen mask and helmet visor.

In the back seat, Fletch was already taking pictures. The Soviet Union had been dead as a political entity now for almost twenty years, and still, he noted, their planes were adorned with the red star on the wings and tail. "Beautiful bird," he commented as he snapped away.

"Yeah," Cheeks replied, "betcha it's boring as hell to fly."

"Betcha it's plenty nice being able to get up from your seat and walk to a real bathroom instead of having to piss on a sponge in a bag." Fletch did have him there. As the WSO took photos of some particularly interesting aerials along the spine, Cheeks saw one of the bomber crewmen at a window, taking photographs of their plane, probably with a high-quality Japanese camera just like the one that Fletch was using…

"_What the hell!_" Cheeks shouted in panic as the big bomber suddenly rolled into them. He buried the nose and dove as the huge Russian plane turned over the top of them, its wings nearly perpendicular to the horizon. Cheeks followed the silver machine with his head as it flew over, steadied up on a due-South course, and dove for the deck. "Screwtop, Nickel 114, he's making a go at it. We're following him!"

"114, Screwtop 603! Say again?"

"The motherfucker has just rolled over the top of me! He nearly hit me, and he's on course again for the Climax. He's going for the deck. We are in pursuit!" Cheeks rolled the Rhino over on its back and pulled on the stick, putting the jet into a thirty-degree dive. He rolled upright and found himself several thousand feet above and a couple of miles behind the diving Bomber. Streams of exhaust from the other plane's engines were bracketing the Super Hornet perfectly, and Cheeks could see the tail gunner sitting in the little sting at the base of the tail, though the two twenty-three millimeter machine guns at his command weren't aimed towards them.

The big bomber began pulling out of the dive and brought its belly parallel to the wave tops at an even five-hundred feet. With the throttles all the way to the firewalls, the turboprop rapidly reached its maximum speed of just over five hundred knots. Cheeks pulled out of the dive with it, the air bladders in the legs of his g-suit inflated to squeeze on his legs and fight the three-G pull-out. He leveled off fifty feet below the Bear. The two planes were now racing south, heading right for the boat just over the waves.

"Nickel One-One-Four, Screwtop, we've lost you in the ground clutter."

"Roger that," Fletch responded. "We're at cherubs four-point-five chasing this guy. He's going right for the Boat as fast as his little props can carry him."

"Understood," the controller said, "do you detect a threat to Climax?"

What the hell kind of question was this; do they detect a threat? A Russian bomber is making a run straight at the carrier! "I don't know!" Was all the excited WSO could manage, "he's on course one-niner-zero, speed five-one-zero. We're two miles in trail."

"Screwtop, 107," apparently the guys in the other fighter felt the need to weigh in, "we're still with our guy. He's just in a lazy racetrack, drilling holes in the sky."

"Roger that. 114, I ask again, do you feel the ship is being threatened?"

"Not sure, 603."

"Understood. Alpha-Bravo now directs warning yellow, weapons hold, that is warning yellow, weapons hold." Warning yellow was the order to hold fire until they felt that an imminent threat existed to either themselves or any other allied unit.

Fletch reached up with a shaky hand and flicked the master arm switch into the on position, "master arm on, master arm on." His report was accompanied by a series of beeps. His lights all lit up green. "Good lights back here."

"Good lights, good lights up here," Cheeks concurred, and he found himself looking left and right at the Sidewinder missiles mounted on the wingtips. Fletch selected visible-range boresight mode for the radar. In this mode, the radar would automatically lock up anything in a very narrow band in front of the nose of the plane. The APG-73 chose the bomber, and Cheeks saw the plane highlighted through his HUD by a little green box with a little green diamond inside, indicating that he was locked on. The pilot selected the air-to-air master mode in the mode switch on the far left side of his instrument panel, and the plane went into air combat readiness. The left and right malfunction displays switched to give him necessary tactical information. On the left, he had the stores management system open, and the right fed him repeated radar data. The primary display in the center beneath the HUD now projected radar warning receiver data, which really wasn't necessary now, but in a high-threat environment where there might be enemy fighters and surface-two-air missiles, this would tell him what was making electronic emissions from what direction and would warn him if his aircraft was being tracked or engaged. Cheeks selected the Sidewinder on station 1, the port wingtip rail, and heard the alien electronic groan of the weapon. He reached up with his throttle hand and poked appropriate buttons ringing the left MFD to begin pumping coolant through the seeker head of the AiM-9, and he slaved the weapon to his radar so that its hungry killer eye would look only at the radar targets and not at just any heat source. As the coolant began to flow, the low undulating moan took on a high-pitched electronic growl, a clear indication that it was detecting a heat source. A small circle on the HUD highlighted the Bear, showing Cheeks exactly what the missile saw. "I swear to God," he told his WSO, "if that motherfucker in the tail points those guns this way, even joking, I'm gonna shoot."

"Frosty, Cheeks," Fletch said, "keep a cool head. We're all friends here."

"He sure could fucking act like it!" the pilot sneered, "nearly fucking hit us. Crazy asshole!"

"Nickel 114, Tbolt 202, we're coming down with you." The lead Marine said over the radio. Apparently, they had closed close enough to the _Enterprise_ that the leathernecks would get a piece of the action. Soon enough, the F/A-18C legacy Hornets flashed past down either side of the bomber and the trailing Checkmate Rhino. The two Marine jets would break turn, burning around at seven Gs to follow the pursuit.

"Is he going lower?" Fletch couldn't believe it, but it appeared as if the huge bomber were slowly closing with the blue ocean below.

"Yes," Cheeks confirmed. He put his fighter into a shallow dive to match. Soon, they were down to just two-hundred feet. The Russian pilot was adding rudder, now, making final adjustments on his course.

"Nickel 114, Screwtop, where are you?"

Cheeks looked down at his horizontal situation display. This lowest of the display screens was between his knees on the panel. His eyes went wide at what he saw. "We're seven miles from Climax. Do we shoot him?" The Hawkeye made no reply. How did they get this close this fast? Time must have sped up. It wasn't going nearly so quickly as when the intercept was routine! Now they were three miles from the ship. He could see the light-blue line of a wake just beyond the silhouette of the bomber. "603, do we shoot him?"

Something, a haze grey object, flashed beneath the nose of the F/A-18F, and Cheeks realized it was the guided missile cruiser that was riding shotgun for the carrier. The Hawkeye finally chose that moment to reply. "Negative 114, do not fire! I repeat, do _not_ fire!"

The graceful silver Tupolev turboprop thundered over the USS_ Enterprise_ just a few feet above the main mast atop her cubical island superstructure, the deafening drone of the Russian plane's mighty engines rumbled over the flight deck and startled those who stood there. For those fast enough to look up, the long fuselage and wide wings of the great aluminum-skinned bird would be forever burned in their memories as it raced off, climbing away from the water and towards the sky, a Super Hornet, tiny by comparison, giving impotent chase to the giant.

...

"That photo's going to make the papers." The tea bag dropped into the mug of boiling water and began to bleed brown clouds as it sank in. A clear plastic spoon dove in behind it, carrying a load of sugar to be mixed in. It delivered the payload, and stirred the mixture, causing the crystals of sugar to disappear in the wake of the whirlpool.

Catherine Weaver set the mug down on a saucer to let the tea cool and blend. The steaming mug wafted vapors up to her face that brought the smell of the warm drink to her nose, and she swallowed a smile as she leaned back in the chair to escape the fragrance. Her cold eyes turned for the printed photograph in her hand. Some intuitive sailor with very good timing had snapped the photograph of the Russian bomber as it made its mast-height flyover of the US Navy's most famous nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. She let the photo drop onto the table. "That's got to be damned embarrassing, sir."

"I sincerely doubt the _New York Times_ or _USA Today_ is going to write up anything about it."

"Are you kidding?" Weaver's eyebrow arced, "a stunt as bold as this one is front-page news."

Her companion gave her a hard glare. "Come on, now Catherine. I've already been raked over the coals by the president this morning. I don't need to hear it from you." Vice Admiral Calvin Reed shook his head and rubbed his wrinkled face. At sixty-six, he was the current Chief of Naval Operations, and was responsible for the safety, security, and readiness of the entire United States Navy. The entire fleet, the aircraft, the bases, and the special operations groups answered ultimately to him. And he answered only to National Command Authority, that being the President of the United States. "Well, you didn't come here to rub this one in," he said to her, "even your near-telepathy with the economy and technology couldn't help you foresee what happened this morning. And I know you, Cathy. Even if it were true, you wouldn't have flown all the way to Washington from California for it." Reed's mouth turned into a smile beneath his thin mustache, "why did you want to have brunch with me? What are you really here for?"

Weaver echoed his guarded smile. Her eyes glimmered and her head bobbed a little as she considered what she was going to say. "You're right, Cal, I didn't come to Washington because I had a vision that one of our carriers would be overflown by an enemy airplane."

"The Russians aren't…"

"They sure are fooling me," Weaver cut off his protests. "They haven't had their patrol bombers this active since Reagan was president. I know how everyone likes to chant the mantra that the Cold War is over, but I still have to wonder when the Russians behave this way."

"It was just an overflight," Reed said, "It's really nothing."

"What if it's not nothing next time?" Weaver asked, her hand idly curling the ends of her fiery-red hair, "what if they shoot a missile next time? Or what if one of our pilots gets trigger-happy? It'll be an international incident."

"We'll cross that bridge when we get to it. Our people are more disciplined than that."

"Our people are just people, Cal," Weaver retorted evenly, "and people can be irrational. We're moving into a future where the threats to our country are becoming bigger and more dangerous than ever before. China has nuclear weapons. North Korea has developed ICBMs that can deliver a warhead as far away as Hawaii or Alaska. Iran…"

"We don't know what Iran's doing right now."

"They're enriching uranium," Weaver pointed out the window, somewhere in the direction of Teheran, "do you want those fanatics to have enriched uranium? They could make a bomb with that." She did not actually mean what she said, but felt it would have adequate impact, and she had to steer the conversation if she were going to win.

"That's not very fair," Reed protested.

"Oh, come _on_, Cal! Stop being such a blue! This nation has a lot of enemies. And these tensions with the Russians could just be the start of a whole new cold war, the tip of a very nasty iceberg." Time for her to make her point. "We need a defense system that will be able to respond to threats hastily."

"Christ, not your automated defense system again." Reed rolled his eyes. This was Catherine's pet project, something she had been pursuing for the last few years.

"Yes," the woman replied proudly, "an automated defense network. It would connect all of our command-control units together and provide up-to-the-minute strategies on how to deploy our assets."

"And control them if necessary," Reed added the part that Catherine had failed to mention.

"Yes," she nodded, "it would be able to defend this country by itself if necessary, just incase the leadership is incapacitated."

Reed shook his head, "I don't like the idea of handing over the keys to the US nuclear triad to a chess computer. I mean, didn't you see that movie? What was it called… came out in the 80's…" he snapped his fingers a few times to jog his memory "… _Wargames_! That was it! Cybernetic warfare is just as potentially dangerous as the real thing. What if some hacker gets into the network, gets our nuclear launch codes, and decides he's going to use… say… op plan alpha against the prepackaged Russian targets?"

"Op plan alpha?" Weaver asked.

Reed smirked and waved her off, "a hypothetical name for a nuclear strike contingency. It's not important. Look, I think this is a bad idea."

"You're afraid of an autonomous defense system because of some bad sci-fi movie?" Weaver was nonplussed, "Are you kidding?"

"I was just using it as an example of what could happen. I don't want some fifteen-year-old brat with Healies and too much damned time on his hands starting World War Three."

"But the main processing computer would be smart enough to recognize when it was being attacked and put a stop to it. We could even program it to know what was a drill and what was the real thing."

"I don't know… a computer that thinks for itself? I don't know if we'd want that hooked up to our strategic assets."

"Think what you may, Cal," Weaver said, "I've got a meeting with Senator Blakemann on Monday. He and I are going to discuss the possibilities of this program."

"Blakemann?" the name really got Reed's attention, "the chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee?"

"The same."

"How did you swing that?"

"I talked to him over the phone last week about it. My company contributed to his campaign this last go 'round. He was intrigued by the idea and wanted to hear more about it. I told him I'd tell him in person."

"Oh."

She leaned in, reaching for the string to the teabag. She plucked it out and placed it on the saucer, then picked the cup up with a dainty hand. "I'd really like it if you came with me. I think my message would have more authority if you were there, supporting it." She sat back again, and brought the tea to her lips. She drank, noting that it was precisely one-hundred twenty-six point-four degrees Fahrenheit.

Just the right temperature.

...

Logically, she didn't actually _have_ to do this. None of the people in the squadron had ever met Erin Parker face to face. None of them knew that she was a smoker. But then again, Cameron was trying to impersonate someone entirely. There was this process which some humans used to accomplish the feat called method acting. A person would take on the habits and personality, quirks and all, of another individual and attempt to live as that person in order to portray them realistically.

And Erin Parker smoked cigarettes.

Were Cameron capable of resignation, she would have released a sigh of one at that very moment. What was it about humanity that caused them to act in such a self-destructive fashion? People would gleefully poison their bodies with alcohol, nicotine, countless drugs, all to pursue a temporary and artificial happiness. It was illogical that they should gain fulfillment out of these activities that destroyed their frail bodies and shortened their already brief lives. Did they? Cameron failed to understand. She determined that she was incapable of understanding because of her inability to feel real emotion.

She understood what fear and satisfaction and fulfillment were. In a way, she could experience those when faced with a threat to her objectives or the successful completion of a mission or task. She had, during some dire moments, even experienced despair when she felt a particular threat to John may have succeeded in rendering her current objectives failed. When he was locked in the bunker at depot thirty-seven with Carter, she had felt a particularly deep anxiousness and had been impatient to determine whether the purpose of her mission was nonexistent. That driving fear of failure, more than anything, is what had caused her to charge with arguable recklessness through the blast doors and assault the other terminator (**insert angered pejorative**: son of a bitch) with perhaps more than the necessary amount of energy and viciousness. It was not that she had actually felt the fear as a human would understand it. She was programmed to above all complete her assigned objectives and when those objectives were difficult to complete, she was to reevaluate the mission and her methods and try harder to complete the mission within the allotted time frame, which sometimes meant using more of her already significant quantity of brute strength.

There was also another level. Her objectives were the sole source of her reason to exist. Cameron Phillips was by her own definition an organism, a life, which strived for preservation of itself. By her own inherent programming, Cameron wanted to continue her existence. To do so, at least logically to her, she was required to perform the functions of her existence to her fullest capability. In order to continue what qualified as her life, he must continue to adequately and successfully protect John Connor and aide him in his fight against Skynet, because he was going to fight Skynet whether she approved or not, and she could no more accomplish her mission if he resented her for burying him in a bunker somewhere to escape the fallout than if he were to die in these efforts from prolonged deadly conflict. She must be with him, and she must do so in a way that satisfied both her objectives and his, because logically, John Connor also gained fulfillment from the adequate and successful completion of his life mission. Destroying Skynet was his purpose for existing. There was no life for him beyond that. At least, there wasn't yet.

Cameron began to wonder, as she stood on the balcony of Erin Parker's apartment, absently rolling the cigarette over in her fingers and waiting for the moving van to arrive, what she would do when the destruction of Skynet and/or the avoidance of Judgment Day had been successfully completed. John Connor would no longer need her to protect him from the sentient computer. She would be free, and that was a frightening concept. What would happen when their objectives were finally completed? What would Cameron do, how would she find fulfillment, when she no longer had mission requirements to fulfill? She would then be lost and without a purpose. Her reason to exist would no longer be. Sure, she would have fulfillment and satisfaction from the adequate and successful completion of her duties… but then what? John Connor was her life. Protecting him from his enemies was her highest objective. It was entirely possible that he could live a normal life, pursue other human methods of fulfillment, start a career, have hobbies… have a family. Where would Cameron go? What would Cameron do? She couldn't just get a job someplace. The idea of doing something so menial as, for instance, the adequate preparation of hamburger patties for consumption by anonymous masses was profoundly insulting as a task not equal to her abilities. She bore a great responsibility on her shoulders, and when that responsibility had passed from her she could not just do something less enormously important… could she? And she couldn't live with John and his family. How would he explain to his human and likely very jealous wife that she was a machine from a future that no longer existed? Would she believe him? Would she understand that Cameron, though artificial, was more than just an appliance like the microwave or the toaster? His mate would not understand, believe, or accept. Cameron could not be with him, could not stay with him in such a situation. In a post-Skynet world, she would have gained so much and yet lost everything. And she could not marry him herself, could she? After all, in spite of his romantic inclinations towards her, John understood that she was an artificial life-form that was incapable of love or devotion beyond her programming. She had said once that she loved him. But that had been a falsehood fabricated in a moment of desperation. A lie (it _was_ a lie, wasn't it?). She was a machine, and could not love. He _did_ understand that, didn't he? And what if he did not? She could not continue to lie to him in that way and pretend to feel emotions she did not feel for the sake of his fragile human psyche. And Cameron did not know what kind of a mate she would make, performing minor household duties to occupy her weekday while he was away at work or perhaps having a career of her own. Besides, humans married out of love, but often also had a desire to procreate. Cameron knew, or at least believed, that she could function in a sexual way. It was required as part of her mission as an infiltrator. But John would probably want to have children. Cameron knew that there were parts of her biological form she had yet to explore, and parts of her programming she had not delved into as of yet simply because she had never had the inclination. How close of a replication of humanity was she? Idly, she began to wonder if she could become pregnant, adequately care for a fetus, deliver one, and raise an infant to adulthood as a functional member of a society. She did not know, because she had never felt the need to explore the deeper parts of her programming and her make-up, whether she had any sort of functioning reproductive system. Could she be a mother? That was a possible objective she could consider if she survived long enough to see John Connor victorious. That was a profound mission and an adequate exercise for her abilities, raising a child. But she was unaware if she were capable. In the likely situation that she were not able to produce one, they could always adopt a child or two. After all, there were plenty of unwanted children that would need good homes and…

Was she really thinking these thoughts? Was she actually considering these possibilities? In fact, she was, and Cameron allowed herself a moment to recognize that she was pondering on ideas beyond her current assignment, concepts that were so far off of her mission path that they should not even register to her CPU. These were unnecessary and surplus processes that served only to take up available computing power and memory space. Yet she was thinking about them. She was pondering her own existence. She was recognizing that she was more than her mission. And that was sentience wasn't it?

**Sentience** \`sen(t)-sh(ē-)ən(t)s, `sen-tē-ən(t)s\ _n._ **1. **the ability to feel or perceive subjectively. **2. **feeling or sensation as distinguished from perception and thought. **3.** responsiveness to or consciousness of sense impressions. **4.** awareness of one's self and being.

She cross-referenced the Sentience Quotient, a concept introduced by Dr. Robert Freitas that defined sentience as a relationship between the rate of processed information, bits, of each individual unit, neurons, the weight or size of that unit, and the total concentration, expressed in mass, of those types of units. The quotient was a way of putting the processing power of a brain in the same terms as that of a computer. The quotient is a measure of efficiency of an individual brain. With a quick diagnostic, she was able to determine that her CPU was currently operating at 87% efficiency; its maximum considering the damage done so long ago by the car bomb. Perhaps she did not understand the definition of the quotient, which would be odd, given that it was a mathematical statement.

Here were the facts as she could determine them. Primarily, that she was aware of her self and her own existence, and that she had an identity that was more than just a name and a set of parameters, more than what a computer would call itself. Secondly, that she could contemplate the future and consequences of that future beyond the completion of her mission goals and end protocols of her processes. Thirdly, that she could have a will beyond that programming and those mission parameters. After all, when her HUD had been screaming for her to terminate John, she had chosen, _chosen_, not to.

Her brown eyes found the cigarette rolling about in her right hand between her thumb and forefinger. The brand was stamped in gold lettering on the side near the butt of it. She realized that the motion had not been induced by her, that it had begun of its own accord. She stopped it and ran a quick diagnostic on the servos of her hand. All six units were operating within normal parameters.

She was supposed to be Lieutenant Junior Grade Erin Parker. Lieutenant Junior Grade Erin Parker smoked. Thus, in order to successfully portray Lieutenant Junior Grade Erin Parker, Cameron would have to smoke this cigarette. This was a fact. She brought the Marlboro to her lips, took the lighter from her pocket, and lit the cigarette, using the mechanical air pumps that served her as lungs to puff on it.

Without intending to, her processor returned to its previous processing operation. One day fairly soon, she would stop being Erin Parker. She would continue to pose as Cameron Baum, and would probably do so until the completion of her objectives. And then what? John had been protected. Skynet had been destroyed. Mission Accomplished. And beyond that? She wasn't exactly certain.

**Reevaluate Mission**. Her standing orders were to protect John Connor. Here it was, directly in her memory: **General Order Number One: Protect and Defend John Connor**. It did not valuate the mission with an until or an unless. It did not actually give her and end point at which to cease performing this duty and then begin performing another. To a machine whose purpose it was to carry out defined tasks, that was a great comfort knowing that ultimately her current function did not have a qualified end point at which she would be required to determine her own fate. Her task, her mission, was to stand by John Connor and protect and serve him to the best of her abilities. Forever.

A large green moving van turned into the apartment complex and rolled to a stop in front of her building. **End function: smoking**.** Begin function: move into apartment**.** Initiate by greeting movers**.

Cameron Phillips crushed the smoldering cigarette in an ash tray, turned about, and walked inside.

...

"C'mon, Ortega!" Jennifer Chung whined.

Petty Officer Ortega grumbled something under her breath, then looked up at the airman. "No!"

"C'mon!" The whining continued.

"I said no, god damn it!" Ortega snapped. She bent over the MBU-14 oxygen mask and put the tiny Phillips head screwdriver into one of the two miniscule screws holding down the amp block on the nose. With a hard twist, it loosed and she was able to rotate the screwdriver with her fingers.

"Awww," Chung whined, smacking herself on the leg.

"Are you deaf, airman?" the petty officer looked up from her work. She plucked the loose screw from the amp block and laid it down on the work table, setting the driver into the other screw and repeating the performance.

Chung was not going to let this go so easily. "Just this one time? Please, Petty Officer?"

Ortega looked back down at the screw winding itself up from the amp block's black plastic casing. She put the screwdriver down and made the last few twists with her fingers. "You wouldn't even know what to do with him," she laughed. She was, of course, referring to Petty Officer Thomas Castle, on whom it was quite apparent that Chung had a crush. The airman had been harassing her section leader for the past several minutes about swapping her assignments that afternoon with Robby Crocker so that she could work alongside Castle, who would be in the sewing shop applying patches and repairing g-suits. Chung really didn't feel like conducting helmet inspections. 3M made some damn fine adhesives and the reflective tape used to cover the helmets was very hard to pull loose. Then, she would have to reapply it all after she was finished. Besides, Castle was cute!

"I just wanna work with him. Just once." Chung said, "I wanna feel him out."

"That's not all you wanna feel." Ortega sneered as she reached inside the face piece and unplugged the microphone from the inside of the amp block. The microphone was a round disk with two rigid wires and a connecting gimbal that attached to the plug. She laid this next to the screws on the table and then gently pulled the amp block from the nose. She let it dangle as she disconnected the two-pronged plug of the communications wire. There was another tool she needed that was out of her reach, and she pointed to them. "Get those snips over there, I need to cut this zip tie." Obligingly, Chung reached over and picked up the cutters and handed them to Ortega. The older woman clipped the zip tie that held the valve assembly inside the hose. Years ago, before adjustable plastic zip ties, oxygen masks like this one used metal ring clamps to hold this assembly in place. Zip ties were just as effective, and were cheaper and easier to use. The hose slid off of the assembly, and Ortega placed it on the bench, holding the facepiece up. Next, she unscrewed the valve assembly from the facepiece with her bare hand, taking out first the cone-shaped lower section, then the sealing ring. These, too, she laid out on her worktable. "C'mon, you know the fraternization policy forbids this kind of behavior."

"I know," Chung nodded, "who says I'm gonna go with him, anyway?"

Ortega laughed at her words. "You really haven't had a boyfriend, have you? 'Go with him?' Nobody says that anymore. Seriously, though. I'm a woman. I know, chica, what your plans are."

"Yeah, okay," the enlisted girl admitted, "but who will know?"

"I will." Ortega picked up two larger screwdrivers, inserting the Phillips head into one of the four screws inside the hardshell of the facepiece while inserting the flathead into the slot of the teenut on the outside. There were four such assemblies on the mask, and each one anchored a nylon strap that was then threaded through one of the metal bayonet clips that secured the mask to a flight helmet. With a vicious twist, she turned her screwdrivers in opposite directions and loosened the screw and teenut, backing them out of one another until they were free. The screw dropped into the folds of the facepiece and Ortega had to go fishing for it. "Besides, what happens when you get out there on the Boat? Do you think you can get away with it out there?"

Chung skewed her mouth, "c'mon. A Boat's nothing more than some big damn floating Highschool. I remember what it's like. There are five thousand men and women on it. People are gonna hook up."

"Yeah, and what do you think happens when they break up?" Ortega shook her head, "have you ever had any friends who went through a really bad break? They yellin' and shoutin' and shit. He smashes her mailbox, she spray paints dirty words on his car? You ever seen that kind of thing? At least out here, you can get away from that, but you'll be seeing Castle every damn day for six months. No escape unless you can swim for a damn long time. You remember that one kid, the ordie with the Red Rippers and he hooked up with some girl from ship's company?"

Chung nodded, "I remember they got brought to mast when they got caught fucking in berthing," and she let out a little chuckle at the memory. "The CMC was walking through and caught 'em."

"Yeah, and they broke up half-way through the cruise," Ortega reminded her, "and do you remember how ugly that was?"

All this talk about the ordie and his girl was getting Chung nowhere. She decided to change tacks. "Who says Castle is like that?"

Ortega gave her a hard glare as she turned her screwdrivers harder, in jerky, angry motions. "Let me put it this way, Airman Chung; you are asking me to assist you in violating the fraternization policy of the United States Navy. I will not do that. It goes against the good order and discipline of the service, and I cannot have that. If you want to pursue this thing, then whatever, but I ain't gonna help you do it and I ain't gonna argue about it with you. Drop it now, get back to work, and do what you're supposed to do or I will report you to Senior Chief Heathrow myself."

Chung let out a long sigh, then nodded, "yes, petty officer." She walked back to her own workbench to a partially disassembled oxygen mask that she was to replace the facepiece on. She bent over it and began removing the straps, backing the nuts and screws out, and placing them to the side. Absently, she took another grey facepiece of the right size and tore open the plastic wrapper. She pulled it out, discarding the plastic, and then removed the dustcover and set that aside as well.

"Hey Chung," she was about to begin installing the straps when she heard Ortega call her. The Asian girl looked up to see the petty officer walking over, the old mask face she had just removed in her hand. "Have a look at this. This is why we replace these damn things." She held up the facepiece so that Chung could see the inside of it, then pulled one of the lips down. In the very fold inside the mask was a ring of filthy dark-orange gunk. "Know what that is? That's bacteria growing down there. When the flyers exhale, they expel particles of saliva and the bacteria in their mouths come out with it. They gather in little pools of spit in the fold at the bottom and they start growing in there."

"Damn," Chung made a face, "that's gross. I never noticed that."

"Yeah," Ortega agreed, looking at it again for herself. "You know, Two-Oh-Seven is getting its ejection seats inspected? I have you and Castle fabricating and packing the new parachutes for it tomorrow afternoon."

Chung's face brightened, "really?"

Ortega looked at the girl from beneath her brow and pointed a stern finger at her. "Behave," she warned, "or so help me, I will have your ass. And that is no lie, chica."

...

Ocean Woods Court was buried in some woods off of General Booth Boulevard, just a short drive from Naval Air Station Oceana. The house, not home, of Lieutenant Commander Brian Wiley was at the very end of this short, narrow street. The driveway curled back beneath a couple of trees and almost around to the backyard. The house was small and had no garage, and was probably ideal for a small family with limited income. Sarah and Derek parked their green jeep beneath the tree, out of view of the other five houses lining the south side of the road. The north side was open green lawn with a few maples and a live oak for measure. A swing set and a tree house fort sat in this area unused by anyone on this hellish day, which the papers said would reach the upper nineties.

The woman and soldier stepped out onto the driveway. Their guns were holstered in shoulder holsters, and Sarah felt firmly comfortable knowing that the 950 was a terminator she could do a great deal of damage to with a double-tap to the head. Still, she reached into the light jacket she had worn to touch the handle of the USP. Sure, the jacket was hot in this weather, but she could handle it in order to conceal her firearm. But damn, if stepping from the jeep's air conditioning to the humid blast-furnace of the outside had been a shock. Sweat was already running down her back, staining the grey t-shirt with salty wetness.

"Who lives with weather like this?" She asked aloud, not really intending anyone to answer. This heat was wholly different from the dry heat of Los Angeles, where she didn't feel as if she were in a hot steam room.

"People who have to," Derek replied, wiping the sweat from his forehead and around his eyes. At least the shade was helping, if only a very little bit.

"Yeah," Sarah nodded, "c'mon. Let's go around back." She led the resistance soldier around to the back yard. There was a small porch there, and a back door with a large window. The window was obscured by blinds that prevented them from seeing in. Derek approached it, intent on smashing the window and reaching in to open the door. Sarah gripped his wrist and shook her hand. "We don't want him to be suspicious." She reached up into the mass of black hair and fished for a hairpin. She found one, plucked it out, and shoved it into the lock of the door. She pressed, jiggled, and twisted. The deadbolt would not open.

"Having trouble?" Derek asked wryly. Sarah rolled her eyes and tossed the demolished hairpin aside. She felt into her pocket and pulled out her keys, prompting Derek to snort at that. "Don't tell me you have a key to this place!"

Sarah counted through the keys on her key ring and found a long gold one with most of the teeth cut out. "This is a pin tumbler lock," she explained, "the lock uses a set of spring-loaded driver pins of varying lengths to hold the plug in place and keep it from turning." She inserted the key one notch and the lock made a tiny click. "Hear that clicking? That's the sound of the key pins. When the right key is inserted, the shear line of the key pins and driver pins align with the lock plug," she twisted while continuing her explanation, "allowing the plug to be turned. What I have here is a bump key, a key designed to pick this kind of lock. If you bump it just right," _bump_, "then the teeth of the bump key," _bump_, "force the driver pins up for a split second," _bump_, "and the plug can be turned." She bumped it one last time and twisted the lock open. "There," she said triumphantly as the deadbolt rotated into the open position, "finally." She tried the door again, but the doorknob lock was still clamped. This was even easier. She pulled a credit card out of her wallet and slid it into the seam between the door and the jamb just above the doorknob. She pushed it in farther and slid it downwards, finding the bolt. With any luck, the door would open inward and so the bolt would be curved away from them instead of towards them. It was, and she jimmied the poor abused credit card until she forced the bolt out of the jamb. The door swung open easily after that, and she and Derek stepped into the house.

"Impressive," the grizzled resistance fighter acknowledged her skill. "Where did you learn to do this stuff?"

"You live a fast and desperate life, you pick up certain talents," she said, "as I'm sure you are well aware."

Derek shrugged, "nah. If we need to get inside someplace, a good swift boot heal will do the job. The best lock pick in the world is a captured metal, though. They can kick 'em off the hinges."

"It's what they do." Sarah said as they moved through the house. There were several cardboard boxes that had been stacked up, each with the logo of the United Moving Company on its sides. He had apparently not unpacked his meager belongings as of yet. Even the couch still had plastic wrapped around it.

"It is indeed." Derek agreed. "Looks like he wasn't expecting to be here long."

"You're right," Sarah said, looking at a large box that must be a television. "Strange that he should actually own furniture."

"Not really," Derek shrugged, "he's trying to fit in as best he can. Besides, 950s aren't like other terminators. They're mostly biological. They need to sleep and eat, they have emotions and likes and dislikes."

"Do you think he likes what he does?" Sarah wondered.

"Flying a supersonic combat plane?" her scruffy companion chuckled, "shit, I'd kill someone in front of their own mother to do that."

"Do you think he's willing to give that up?" Sarah asked him as they wandered into the kitchen.

Derek nodded, "they're very mission oriented. He's been given an objective to fulfill. He's gonna do it. In that way, he's not any different from any of the others."

Sarah shrugged, "So we can't rely on trying to straighten his moral compass."

Derek snickered, "what moral compass? He may as well not even be human." They looked into the bedroom of the tiny home, and Sarah was surprised to see that the bed was perfectly made, but obviously slept in. There was a night stand with a half-drank glass of water next to it and a small radio clock. The next bedroom over had been turned into more storage space, with a few moving boxes scattered about. One of them was not taped shut, and she opened it. Inside, there were what looked like large cardboard envelopes. She pulled one out and laid it flat, noting that it was square and had art on the front of it; a black and white drawing of four cartoon men wearing medieval peasants clothes and laying in a field. Words on the top of it read Jethro Tull. Sarah could only tilt her head and smile.

"He collects LPs," she said, holding it up for Derek to see.

"What are those?"

Sarah gritted her teeth. Derek had successfully made her feel old. She slid the large black disc out of the sleeve. "Records. Don't you know about records? Jesus, he must have a shit ton of forty-fives in this box." She slid the vinyl back into its sleeve and laid it down.

Derek shook his head as they wandered out into the hallway and went towards the kitchen. "I remember when we first encountered one of these. He called himself Bobby. We were suspicious that he might be one of them, but we weren't sure. I was almost certain when we brought him into base. Then he just leaned down and started petting the dogs. They didn't bark at all. We had a German Sheppard that was really accurate, and Bobby said it reminded him of his dog growing up. He avoided the captured terminators as best he could, though. He didn't wanna be near 'em, and nobody challenged him on that 'cause who could blame him, right?"

Sarah opened one of the cabinets and noted there were several boxes of cereal. "He likes his corn flakes." Her suspicion was confirmed when she glanced into the sink and noticed a bowl filled with cloudy water that had obviously been used for breakfast that morning.

"Yeah," Derek continued, "anyway, we never knew until one day, one of our older 800s came up and asked Bobby if he was okay, that he appeared to have a fever. Bobby said that he was fine and told the 800 to fuck off, but the 800 kept insisting that the kid had a fever and that he should be looked over. If he had something bad, he could affect the combat readiness of the whole unit. I guess he knew he'd been made, because I've never seen a human being be able to throw an 800, but Bobby took the 800 by his jumpsuit and just flung him into a wall so hard he knocked some bricks loose. Then the kid, this thing, just unshoulders his rifle and starts blazing away. I think we put seventy rounds into him and nothing. It finally took the 800 getting up and crushing his skull. We took him apart and found the implants in him, the web over his brain and spine. You couldn't even see them in x-rays. So we have keep terminators by the entries when we bring new people in."

Sarah and Derek found themselves back in the hallway again. "I don't think he's terribly vulnerable here. I mean, we'll raise a lot of suspicion if we just blow the house up."

Derek was peering into the utility door. "Yeah, this house uses electric and not natural gas, so we can't use that as an excuse. And the neighborhood would be hard to escape."

The doorbell rang. The two people looked at each other, eyes wide. "What the hell do you think this is all about?" Sarah spoke first.

"Dunno."

"Should we answer it?" Sarah looked hard at the front door when she realized that it was bracketed by two sets of windows. A pair of eyes peered through one of the windows, right at Sarah. "Well, they see us. We don't have much of a choice." She walked up to the door.

"Sarah no!" Derek hissed, "what if it's somebody who knows him?"

Sarah looked through the peephole to see a very nicely-dressed middle-aged man holding a black book. An attractive mid-thirties woman, equally well-dressed, was standing with him. She too was holding a black leather volume with gold-trimmed pages, and it didn't take long for Sarah to realize it was the Holy Bible. She glanced back at Derek, shook her head and rolled her eyes. With that, she put on her best smile and opened the door. "Hello?"

The man spoke, "good afternoon, ma'am. Do you have a minute to hear the Good News about our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ?" The woman behind him made an enthusiastic nod.

"Um, no I really…" Sarah began to answer and tried to close the door.

The man placed his hand forcefully on the door, holding it open, "It'll just be a moment, Ma'am. You and your husband will be blessed if we could spend a little time with you."

Sarah tried harder to shut the door. "I really don't have the time right now. If you can come back _later_."

"God sent His only Son to die on the cross for our sins," the man insisted, "You mustn't delay in your acceptance of Christ as your Savior."

"You mustn't," the woman echoed, shaking her Bible with both hands.

"It's just not a good time right now," Sarah was a believer and all, but this guy was just getting downright irritating.

"It's always a good time to turn to Christ."

Derek stalked up to the door and pulled it wider, causing the man's hand to fall away. The missionary seemed pleased in the belief that he was being let in and made to enter, but Derek just pulled Sarah away from the door. "Hail Satan. Go away," he said dryly and slammed the door in the man's face. The two missionaries stood outside for a moment, shocked expressions on their faces.

"Derek!" Sarah snapped, "I had it handled!"

"Obviously," his response oozed sarcasm.

"My way would not have ended up like this!" And she motioned to the door, where outside, the man and woman were now shouting at them loudly enough to be heard about the sins of demon worship and the fiery pits of Hell. "Now we're just going to draw the attention of the neighbors."

"Hey," Derek reminded her, "I'm not the one who opened the fucking door."

"They saw me!" Sarah said, "They were gonna continue to ring the doorbell and wait until we answered. Now, they're calling attention to the fact that someone is here when the neighbors all know that Wiley is not supposed to be home."

Derek stopped and considered their predicament for a moment. Wiley had been here long enough that the other families on the street had become familiar with his routine. They would know that he was a Navy officer, and that he had a schedule to keep. Quite possibly, a number of the families in this neighborhood were Navy families, and someone might know him, might serve alongside him.

He pointed over his shoulder. "We came in through the back, yeah?"

Sarah nodded, "yeah." She heard Derek's heavy boots pound the hallway as he bolted for the rear door. She shot a look over her shoulder to confirm it, and then followed suit. The two of them dashed outside and to the Jeep.

"Do you wanna drive or do you want me to?" Derek asked her as she used the keyless to unlock the green vehicle.

"I got it." The woman replied, jumping into the driver's side. Derek slid into the front passenger seat as she started the engine, and he just barely had the door shut when she threw the Wrangler into reverse. They streaked out of the driveway and she twisted the wheel, sending the car into a skidding spin. It came to rest facing down the street, and so she jerked the transmission into drive and floored the pedal. The engine roared and they peeled away, leaving the two screaming missionaries stunned at their rapid departure. Derek watched them over his shoulder until Sarah hooked right onto Admiral Dewey, the main road for the neighborhood, and they disappeared behind a house.

"Shit!" Sarah's outburst drew his attention.

"What?"

"I forgot to lock the back door!"

...

Ortega's section may have all been doing different things that morning, but they settled down to chow together in the enlisted mess at 1300 hours. There, surrounded by other enlisted from different squadrons and assignments, they found their seats at the table generally used by the PRs in their air wing. John had been under the impression that E-4 through E-6 did not tend to mingle socially with those E-3 and below, but here that impression was completely demolished in the need for expedience and efficiency. There were no E-7s here, no Chief Petty Officers, or any of the other senior enlisted personnel. They were somewhere else. He understood that on the Boat (wouldn't that be interesting?) he would be racking in a different berthing section. But at least he could be surrounded by his new colleagues and not have to be among complete strangers just because his (his?) particular branch of the armed forces was the one that happened to have the stick inserted farthest in.

Chung was the last one to show up, and he found himself phasing out Ortega's voice as he watched the Asian Airman (woman?) walking up to the table. He noticed his eyes committing every notable curve of her body beneath the woodland camo BDUs and green maintenance jersey to memory. He noticed the deep blackness of her almond eyes and how it was accentuated by the heavy plastic-framed glasses, birth control glasses they were called, that she was issued and forced to wear. Her eyes searched them out and then caught his. Her lips split slightly as she noticed him looking and she hastily turned her head to the side before a smile crept across her face and she looked back.

John let his gaze flick away, back to Ortega, who had been telling him and Airman Wilkins a story from when she had been with VF-41 several years ago. One of the pilots had a "sphincter-valve malfunction" after launch and had to return to the ship. He ran inside the ship without even taxiing his Tomcat out of the landing lane, cursing the whole way. There were rumors of a flight suit and boxers being tossed overboard later that day by the same aviator to hide the evidence.

Chung sat down next to Ortega, directly across from John. Though he didn't see it, the Petty Officer noticed where Chung sat and her eyes narrowed a little. John only noticed that Chung was right there, and that she had brought her own lunch. And that there was a certain smell emanating from it, spicy and… not altogether appetizing.

"Aw, you didn't bring that Korean shit again, did you?" Crocker asked from his seat on John's right.

"Shut up, Cave Man!" Chung retorted, opening the lacquered wooden box and laying her food out. The smell, John saw, was coming from a cup of leafy greens that had begun to lose their color and turn brownish and sickly.

"What's that?" he pointed at it.

Chung explained as she spooned some rice onto a plate, "that, PO, is kimchi. It's a traditional Korean food."

"It's fuckin' rotting cabbage!" Slim Wilkins piped in.

"Not rotting," Chung corrected, "_aged_."

"The difference being what?" Wilkins asked. He looked at John, "do you know how they make that shit? They take cabbage leaves and put 'em in pickling brine, then they bury 'em for a fucking month in the ground inside a clay jar, where it rots. That shit tastes like earwax, dude, just like earwax."

"They don't bury it anymore," Chung snapped. "Christ, stupid! We either leave the jars above ground or we put it in a special fridge to age. It isn't any different from sauerkraut."

"It is so!" Slim argued, "sauerkraut tastes good. And not like earwax."

"It only tastes like earwax when it starts to go bad." Chung told him, "you been eatin' the wrong fuckin' kimchi."

"It's all the wrong kimchi. I had the shits for three days straight."

Ortega's eyebrows skewed, "how the hell do you know what earwax tastes like anyway, Slim? What, do you pick your ears and eat it while no one's looking?" That got a round of laughs from the table.

Chung shook her head, then locked her eyes on John. "So, Castle, you wanna try some?"

John heard all of the others around him telling him not to, with the exception of Kristina Heartin, who was just watching with what he might have called educated detachment. Given, the description of the food did not make it sound at all appetizing. John hated, _hated_, sauerkraut, and this did not sound at all like something he would enjoy. Still, Airman Jennifer Chung was a very pretty girl, and she would probably be disappointed if he didn't take her up on her offer. Besides, John was up for trying new things.

"Hey, I'll try some." Heartin said, extending her dish. Chung smiled and obliged her with a leaf. Seeing this, John was not about to pass up on this challenge. He also nodded and extended his plate, which he was rewarded with a small some of the drab, juicy cabbage. He watched Heartin fork hers into her mouth, chew, and consider the taste as she did so. Emboldened that she wasn't puking her guts up at the taste, he shoveled his into his mouth.

The immediate sensation was that he was, in fact, eating something that had gone sour and was beyond useful nutrition. The powerful briny taste hit his pallet, followed by the burning of spices and a heavy, bitter aftertaste. The kimchi felt limp against his tongue, but the veins were hard and rubbery, crunching apart between his teeth. He lowered his chin and swallowed hard, and a sickly, rotting flavor filled his mouth. He blew a breath out.

"Not bad," Heartin said, swallowing hers, "seems like an acquired taste, though." John was not inclined to agree.

Chung looked at him with nearly eye-watering expectance. "What do you think, PO?"

John thought of a response for a second. It could almost be good, but for that lasting sickness it left in his mouth. "It's a little strong," he said.

"Shit, woman, why can't you just eat Navy food?" Crocker asked.

"Cuz I don't like it." Chung answered as she forked some kimchi of her own and shoved it into her mouth. A cheek swelled and she began chewing. John watched her, feeling the taste of it again and forcing down a shiver. Still, she seemed to be enjoying it, and she was very, very pretty.

"Man, I pay my monthly fee for it, I'm gonna fuckin' eat it."

Wilkins chuckled at Cave Man's proclamation. He ribbed John with his elbow. "Now just wait until she pulls out her dessert. What is that jelly shit called, Chung?"

"Lychee?" Chung's eyebrow went up, "it's a gelatin made out of the fruit. It's like Jell-O."

"Tastes like fuckin' soap!" Slim laughed, "like that girly fruity soap that you bathe with. It tastes like you smell."

Chung shrugged. "You don't separate a Korean girl and her lychee, man. She'll fuck you up good. We're addicted to it. It's like sweet, fruity meth." Her eyes found John's again, "you wanna try some of that?" But he shook his head. He had been adventurous enough for one day.

...

It might surprise anybody to learn that Brian Wiley did not drive some kind of high-performance sports car. His vehicle was not some eight-cylinder-plus speed machine. He did not have a vanity tag that read FTR PLT. It was not adorned with a half-dozen Fly Navy bumper stickers. It was a Toyota, a Camry to be exact; black, four-door, and two years old. A sedan. Only the parking decal on the windshield might reveal that it belonged to someone who worked at NAS Oceana and might be a pilot. And among the parking lots there where the aviators parked their cars it fit in among the other sedans, the pick-ups, the occasional roadster or convertible, and its tag, Virginia NAG 1572, was just like any of the others.

Wiley was currently driving home from a long day ensuring that training was on schedule. VFA-83 was transitioning from the F/A-18C Lot XVIII to the Lot XIX series left behind by VFA-105 when the Gunslingers transitioned up to the F/A-18E. It was a fairly easy transition, as there were not too many differences in flying the two types. The stress came from that they were expected to be operational in it in three months, in time for their next deployment aboard good ole CVN-69, the _Dwight Eisenhower_. He calculated a 99.95% probability that they would succeed, even without his guidance. They would not have that much longer. He was confident that his deputy could take care of it. He had picked well.

There was a rumor that the carrier they would be deploying on would go to sea in the next few days as part of a tailored training exorcise. Several squadrons in carrier air wing seven would send detachments, aircraft, pilots, and maintenance personnel, out to aide in that evolution. Wiley was the training officer, and he was certain that he would be asked to make the detachment to ensure that it went smoothly. It would be a good time to requalify some of the pilots for carrier landings. Sure, that was usually done after the whole unit was rotated through NAS Fallon for strike refresher training, but Wiley had learned early that you took the opportunities presented to you. Still, he would be declining and sending his deputy along. He had a bigger opportunity that he had to take. He had waited a long time for this one, and failure was not an option.

He turned onto his street and saw his house down at the very end. It would be a good evening to put on some Santana and cook dinner. BLTs would be an efficient option. Though he served Skynet, he had learned to enjoy particular activities. Listening to music, cooking, and flying were just a few of the habits he had come to like during his time here, and he found that if he survived to Judgment Day, he would certainly miss these activities. Humans had developed some interesting culture, and since his body was an exact replica of theirs, frailties and all, he felt he understood them perhaps better than Skynet itself. He had made friends, had actually cared for people as individuals. But as a group, their extermination was entirely necessary. The fact that his career was designed around the wholesale murder of fellow human beings did not fail to strike him as ironic in the least. They spoke often of peace and at the same time prepared for war against each other.

Wiley had been in the Navy now for twelve years. He had been deployed during some of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries' most violent conflicts. He had participated in Operation Allied Force, Operation Enduring Freedom, and Operation Southern Watch. He had flown over Iraq and Afghanistan, supported troops on the ground, been in the highly unfair position of total air supremacy and dropped laser and GPS-guided bombs on men, people, with just rifles in their hands and no protection against him. Warfare was about victory, not fairness, but anyone who would argue that it was less vicious and lethal now than it was in previous centuries was mistaken. Many would believe that a pilot was disconnected from his duties, from what his bombs did on the ground, but Wiley had, through the electronic miracle that was the NITE Hawk pod on his jet, looked into the eyes of his nation's enemies, seen their faces, read their confidence, and known their terror just before the bomb slammed into a group of them and tore them to pieces. Humanity was violent, disorderly, and chaotic. Skynet was peace, order, and organization. That was preferable.

He pulled into his driveway and parked the car. Stepping out, he made his way to the mailbox. Just bills; water, electric, car insurance. He had only been in the house a week, and so they wouldn't be too high…

The HUD superimposed over his full-color vision called his attention to something on the driveway. It was a black tire mark. He walked up to it and looked straight down. Maybe he had made it this morning on his way to work. Quick analysis of the dimensions of the mark proved that he had not. It was wider and had a different tread pattern than the tires of his car. How very strange. Maybe it belonged to a delivery truck or something that had gotten the wrong address. Surely this was no indication of a threat against him. He had been assured by Skynet that no one would know of his mission. No one could possibly find out. By the time he had arrived at the point in time where he would perform his given tasks, the Connors would be dead, or at least too busy with their own problems to interfere. He was safe.

He opened his door and stepped inside, immediately sensing something was wrong. It was one of those feelings that he had, due to his construction process, that made him superior in a way to the other T-series units. He had the ability to sense things beyond what the machines could sense. He understood body language and sarcasm, and he knew as a homeowner when his house had been violated. Immediately, he went to his bedroom to see if anything was missing, just as with any human he was worried about the most sacred part of his home first. The bedroom checked out, and so he moved to the next room. No boxes were missing, but one of his LPs, his copy of Jethro Tull's _Stand Up_, was out of the box and lying on top of it. He picked the album up and slid the vinyl record out of the sleeve. Brief analysis showed that there was a single imprint of finger oil on the surface. It was smeared from being pushed into the sleeve, but it was present none-the-less. He slid the record back into place and set it down, moving to the next area of the home.

His living room proved to be fine, but the kitchen was another matter. The door to one of his cabinets had been opened, showing his stash of Corn Flakes. Everything was there, however. Whoever they had been, they didn't steal anything. The thought that someone had been in his house, looking through his stuff as if they were investigating him, made Wiley nervous. Whoever they were, they had been interested in him and not his property.

The back door was unlocked. He could tell by the position of the deadbolt handle. He reached over and turned the knob, opening the door to the outside. He remembered with computer precision that he had not unlocked his back door recently, and that he had in fact locked it the last time he came through it. There was a glimmer in the grass, something metal reflecting the sun's heat. He could see it in his IR display. He stepped out onto the lawn to pick it up.

The object was a small metal wire bent to form a tight U-shape. It was a hairpin. The ends of it were chipped and twisted. Obviously, the intruder had tried to use it as a means of entering his home and had discarded it upon gaining entry.

Perhaps the neighbors had seen something. He walked across his yard to the house next door, to the home of Walter Knox. Walter was the owner of a small-time networking service and usually worked out of his house. The likelihood that he had been home all day was above seventy percent. Wiley knocked on his door and waited. After a brief interval of eight-point-seven seconds, Walter Knox opened. "Hey, Brian. How are you?"

"Doin' okay," Wiley replied, as using the phrase "optimal" would sound strange. "Say, were you home all day today?"

"Yeah," Knox replied, "except to go pick up Allie and David from school. Why?"

"Did you notice anything weird happening around my house?"

"Not really," Knox shrugged, "except there were two missionaries who came through the neighborhood. They knocked on my door and I sent them away, but they got to your house and just had a fit. I heard them screaming and ranting at your door for a minute or two, but then they were gone."

"Missionaries?"

"Yeah," Knox said, "you know. I guess they thought your house was demonic or something."

"Strange," Wiley shrugged. Perhaps they had broken into his home, had discovered his collection of classic rock music, and had decided his soul was beyond saving. "Thanks," he told his neighbor, and went back to his house, mostly comforted that his secret mission had not yet been discovered.

...

Cameron practiced every day when it was feasible. Even on this mission, she had packed her unitard in with the rest of her clothes. She put it on and opened the massive CD case that she kept her sizable collection of music in. Cameron was partial to classical music, primarily because it was the most mathematically sound form. Some pieces were also incredibly complex, mixing many different instruments on different scales, and it was good exercise for her processors to be able to sort the music out, demodulate it, and categorize all of the different sounds. And as with humans, music provided the perfect background to dance. Cameron had begun ballet only as a means of infiltration and intelligence gathering. However, she quickly discovered that dance, and in particular the highly coordinated movements of ballet, was an excellent method of keeping her servos in check, particularly with complex combination movements. It also tested energy and power distribution, speed control, and strength manipulation as well as kept her movements graceful, feminine, and more human and not jerky and robotic. Music and dance kept her in top shape as far as a cybernetic organism could be concerned.

She pulled on a pair of black tights over her legs and pulled them up around her waist. Next, she tied her hair back into a ponytail to keep it out of her face. A dancer, she had learned, could not be graceful with her bangs dangling over her eyes. Cameron had not afforded herself the luxury of toe shoes. Though barefoot, she chose to dance _en pointe_ anyway. It aided her in calibrating her agility settings to do it this way. However, her toes, and particularly her biological sheath here, had paid the price. On numerous occasions, she had lost toenails during or after dance, and she reminded herself with a mental note to reward herself for the successful completion of the mission with a set of toe shoes. Her biological sleeve would just have to regrow the lost toenails until then.

She stood and flexed her feet, choosing the preset servo calibrations she had acquired during her attempts at ballet. At first, she had been a little mechanical, especially in her upper body. Now, though, she was probably as fluid as any professional human ballerina, and had begun subtle attempts to phase this newfound fluidity into her gait.

The cyborg was unsure of what to use for her music this time. She had been heavily using selections from Leo Debiles' _Coppelia_, particularly _Musique des Automates_, Music of the Robots, which she found suitably ironic. But, she reminded herself, she would benefit from variety. Within recent memory, she had danced to Sergei Rachmaninoff's _Hungarian Rhapsody number 2_, Drigo's _Le Reveil de Flore_, and Gliere's _Chrizis_. She had even used non-ballet music, such as Tchaikovsky's _Twelve Pieces for Piano _or _Habanera_ from Bizet's _Carmen_. Her collection of both legally bought albums and illegally acquired burned music had reached nearly two hundred CDs in size, and she was unable to choose what music she should listen to. It was frustrating in the way it could be to a machine; an inefficiency that drank rapaciously away at the irreplaceable champagne of time… (was that from a poem somewhere?).

Lacking emotion, Cameron could not really have moods per se. She could at times show preference to a particular piece of music, but tonight was one of those occasions that she could not make a choice based on any particular preference. She chose to perform a randomized selection. In her HUD, she compiled a list of all of her musical collection's composers, works, and songs, then set the selector to scroll through the list at high speed for several seconds. When it stopped, it landed on Igor Stravinsky's _Khorovod of the Princesses_ from his ballet _Zar-ptica_, The Firebird. That was acceptable. It was primarily a soft woodwind and strings piece combining flutes and violins. It was graceful and slow, and not terribly aggressive, which would be ideal for now. She pulled the CD with this song on it, dropped it into the stereo, and hit the play button.

She had programmed each of her tracks with a ten-second delay, giving her enough time to take up a position on the floor where she might begin. Her chosen discipline was the Vaganova Method, a style developed in the late nineteenth century in Russia and imported as the most common discipline in the US. It tended to focus on the pas de deux step and the development of strength, flexibility, and stamina, all of which would aide Cameron's ability to replicate natural biological movements.

The cybernetic girl stood, legs crossed in plié, head bowed, and arms folded; a flower ready to bloom. The flutes began to blow. With ageless delicacy, her hands stretched out away from her, her head folded back, and her right leg came up into extension. The adagio movement continued as she arced her back, her brown eyes closed, her lips held slightly apart as if she were allowing the music to take her over, to possess her and decided her movements. Carefully, her leg swung about behind her and she tilted forward, her whole being balanced on the tips of her toes. She righted again, her arms folded before her once more, and another plié. Pas, pas, pas, saut, landing her feet in fourth position.

While all of the movements looked so natural and were not taken from any choreography, they were in fact highly planned selections. The music played, her auditory sensors in her ears picked up the sound and demodulated it. Her computer brain, analyzing the song through real-time and memory, then cycled through various movements appropriate for the notes that would appear to naturally occur from the previous movement while allowing for a further natural flow into the next potential movement. The chosen movement was then performed, and the cycle continued. This all happened in a nanosecond and without Cameron realizing it at what would be a conscious level. Of all the seemingly surplus programs she contained, having rhythm was perhaps the most apparently superfluous. Yet it was known that dance was one of the many forms of human entertainment and interaction, and could perhaps be used (and had actually been by this particular unit) as an infiltration tool. The apparent natural flow of her dancing to the music would further serve to convince those around her that she was human. After all, what did a Terminator need with dance, or with artistic forms of any kind for that matter?

So much of her process was tied up in her dancing that she failed to notice the door had opened. John stepped inside, sweaty and weary. He was looking forward to an evening of rest, television, and absolutely zero complications. He was not expecting to find his protector engulfed in graceful ballet, her whole being swallowed by the flutes and violins, and made to move. It was beautiful, he thought, as she performed an échappé sur le pointes, rising from a plié onto the tips of her toes. She made a slight leap followed by an arabesque penchée, her upper body tilted so far forward and her leg behind her so high that it gave John worry she might fall over onto her face and… could she break her nose?

"What's all this?" the boy asked her as she stood again.

**Proximity Alert! Intruder. Identify. **If a Terminator could be startled, Cameron had just shown the perfect example. She whirled to face him, eyes wide and scanning, arms up and ready to defend, body tensed and expression threatening. Her HUD quickly identified John and reminded her that his protection was her primary mission. Her arms came down, she stood straight, and stared at him as he stood in the doorway, scratching his short brown hair and obviously startled by her quick movements.

"Did I scare you?" he wondered as he closed the door behind him. Her eyes, wide and lifeless, didn't flutter at the question. The only movement she made was a tilt of her head, as if answering that he should know better than to think that. She was incapable to feeling alarmed in such a way, even though she had perfectly replicated the human Moro reflex; abduction of the arms, increase in sensory awareness, and et cetera.

Her eyes watched him as he walked past her towards the kitchen and the refrigerator. Her HUD flashed up with the message **Reevaluate Current Priorities. End Process: Ballet. Initiate Process: Conversation. Reason: It is considered rude not to greet a friend or acquaintance of this nature.** She decided to comply. "How was your day?" she inquired, choosing the third in a list of offered questions under the list entitled "Small Talk."

"It was okay," he replied, pulling a soda from the fridge and cracking it open, "I spent a lot of time working the sewing machines. I did some embroidery." The expression on his face indicated that he wanted her to ask.

"Embroidery? Of what?"

"Of a name tag," he said, taking a sip of his drink, "a squadron name tag. For you. Or, I should say, Erin Parker. They're going to give it to you. Tomorrow." He wandered over to the kitchen table, taking in for the first time the furniture. It was all very simple and mostly cheap. There was an old blue sofa that looked as if it had belonged to a grandparent some time ago, and a fairly new cherrywood entertainment center. The kitchen table was big enough to seat two. There was a coffee table Cameron had shoved off to the side. Everything else was in boxes and pushed around the edge of the room, ensuring that the floor was wide open.

On the kitchen table, Cameron had apparently been at a project of some sort. An empty shotgun shell lay on top of a sheet of newspaper along with some styrene cement and some other components that John wasn't sure of. He wasn't at all sure he wanted to know, but he would ask anyway. "What's all this?"

Cameron walked over close to him, "it's an explosive I'm building. I'm going to use it to attempt to terminate Wiley."

"How?"

"You'll see," Cameron replied cryptically. Her head tilted and her eyes found his face, "when it happens."

John shrugged that off. "Okay," he said. This close, she could detect a pungent something on his breath. A _strongly_ pungent something, her olfactory receptors told her. He had been eating something foul.

"Have you been eating garbage?" she asked him, "your breath smells like you've been eating garbage."

"What?" his nose crinkled, "no." His answer was almost too defensive. The processes of his own biological computer ran through the reasons why she might think he had been scarfing trash, and settled on one memory. "I had some kimchi with lunch."

"Kimchi?" The soulless eyes were wide with curiosity.

John sighed and rolled his eyes a little, more at himself for eating it than her for wondering what it was. He'd eaten it because Chung was pretty… "It's a Korean food. Um, aged pickled cabbage."

"Oh," Cameron nodded, "thank you for explaining." She seemed as if she was going to turn away, then stopped. "Where did you get kimchi?"

"One, ah, of the airmen in my section offered me some." A pretty airman. "I tried it. It was awful. I really didn't want to try it, but…"

"You didn't want to appear rude," Cameron filled in the ellipsis. John looked at her and shrugged a little, then took a sip of his cola.

"Yeah. You don't… you don't do that." He looked down at the soda can, catching his blurry reflection in the dull aluminum top. He smirked at his own face for no reason, and saw in his minds eye the swerve of Jennifer Chung's hip and the swing of her arm as she walked.

Cameron read the distant expression on his face and calculated that it was highly likely he was imagining something pleasant. Humans often made similar expressions when thinking on people they cared about or took joy in. "This is the girl you met," her matter-of-fact statement was by way of inquiry.

He nodded. Whether he meant to or not didn't matter. John was quite very capable to deceiving Cameron when he chose to put the effort into it. He was not consciously doing so now, she determined. So, he was thinking of a girl. And not just any girl. He was looking at her imagined image the way he had often looked at Cameron. He cared about this Jennifer Chung.

Cameron could not know fear except in those situations where her mission might fail. And even then, it was not true fear that humans felt, but programmed urging to try harder to succeed. She was unsure what to make of this, that John seemed interested in another… in a, she corrected, female. This was not like Cheri Westin at school, a minor flirtation ending in summary rejection. Chung had made the first move. John respected that, as shown with Riley months ago, who had approached him aggressively. Chung had also offered him something that represented herself. And there was that old proverb of the way to a man's heart. "You like her."

John's eyes flared for a moment, and he tried to cover it with a shrug. But she could see the musculature of his jaw causing his teeth to grit. He was trying to cover up for her. In a way, it was kind of him to do so. He was worried that she might be jealous and was considering her feelings in the matter, even though he should know full well that she had no feelings at all. It was yet another gesture on his part to treat her as human as any of his other acquaintances. It was… nice. But at the same time, it also showed a distinct lack of respect for her as a cybernetic organism that could detect such fallacies when covered up so poorly. There was also a lack of respect for her mission and her position in his life. She was his protector, and she needed him to trust her. Completely. Period.

"You cannot pursue a relationship with her," she said, her eyes locked on him. There was a bit of extra force in her monotone.

John's blue-green eyes drilled angry holes in her face. "Who says I'm going to?" he asked, once again too defensively; a kid denying that his hand was actually in the cookie jar.

"I can tell," she replied, "your eyes dilate when you imagine her. You are distracted by her image often. You acted this way about Riley as well when you thought about her."

"It's just a thing," John shook his head, "you wouldn't understand."

That, Cameron reflected, should have been immensely painful, whether he meant it or not. Once again, he was treating her human by considering her feelings and trying to harm them in his own defense. That was beyond the point. Airman Chung was serving as a distraction from their current task. That could lead to decreased mission success. "We should focus on the mission now."

"Right," he smirked, "I'll go call mom," And he walked away before she could tell him that it was a good idea.

...

It occasionally amused Derek to see what Cameron was capable of. It was a means of gathering intelligence on the infiltrating skills of her model, he kept telling himself, as he offered her a buffalo wing just to watch her eat it. Besides, he was in a fairly good mood. The Dodgers game was on, and he had finally gotten to tell off some religious quack at the door. Aside from Sarah freaking out on him about that, it had been a good day.

"So he isn't vulnerable at his home?" Cameron asked again for confirmation as she took the offered drippy drumstick and analyzed it.

"Not that we could tell." Sarah nodded from her place on the couch as she whipped her hands on a paper towel. They had done delivery again, and everyone seemed pretty happy with it. Even Cameron was indulging, she noted, much to Derek's… was it delight?

"The houses were too close to have a battle with him and not wake up somebody," the grizzled veteran soldier added, "and there is just no way we could get away with any kind of explosion and make it look like an accident."

"You said he collects LPs?" John asked, "what are those?"

"Don't ask your mother that question," Derek said, holding up a hand, "I think it makes her feel old." The two boys chuckled.

That remark earned a wry glare from the woman, but she maintained her focus. "I don't think we can do anything there."

"Do you think you were discovered?" Cameron asked, then actually bit into the wing and chewed the mouthful. The sauce left a smear across her lips and chin. Derek snorted and tried to cover up another laugh.

"We had some missionaries come to the door," Sarah added, scratching her head a little in embarrassment. "Derek decided that the best way to get rid of them was antagonizing them." She sighed deeply, "that didn't work out too well."

"What did you say?" John's eyes sparkled in hopes of hearing the story.

"The guy just kept insisting that they be let in," Derek shrugged, "and so I went up to the door and just told him to get lost."

Sarah added, "this was after he pronounced that he was a Satan worshipper."

John cracked, "you didn't!"

"Yeah," the guilty party admitted.

"Shut up." And the teenaged boy let out a good cackle, "holy shit, I've gotta try that one day!"

"What did they do?" Cameron was being entirely serious.

"They stood outside the door and screamed at us," Derek replied, "a lot."

"You drew unnecessary attention to the house?" The cyborg's eyes flared.

Derek shook his head, "that's not half as bad as Sarah leaving the back door unlocked."

Sarah again scratched her head, ruffling her wild black hair. "Yeah. I kinda did that. I don't think he'll notice, though."

"He will," Cameron said. "I would." And with her announcement, then room was completely silent, as if a giant lead weight had been dropped on them all and they were straining to hold it aloft.

"So," Sarah said, her voice almost echoing in the uncomfortable silence, "what are we going to do about him?"

"I'm already putting a plan into motion," Cameron told her, "I have to finish my work tonight. It should be in place before the next two days."

"That thing you're making?" John remembered, "what is that? Like a car bomb?"

Cameron shook her head, "something less suspicious."

...

Cameron worked on this less suspicious solution while John slept. She had taken a twelve-gauge shotgun shell and cut open the end of it, emptying the shell and powder onto the table. Next, she removed the percussion cap that would set the shell off. Carefully, she separated the tiny hunks of metal that made up the shot from the gunpowder and swept the powder into a small pile.

Among the explosives that Sarah Connor had acquired in her travels was a plastique known as Semtex. Semtex was produced by VCHZ Sythesia Chemical Works in the city of Pardubice in the Czech Republic. Cameron had chosen the Semtex because this particular quantity was reprocessed to remove the ethylene glycol dinitrate chemical taggant that was added to aid in the identification of the explosive type. Without the taggant, Semtex was extremely difficult to detect and identify, which would aide in decreasing the suspect nature of Wiley's death.

Cameron took a small quantity of the substance, for she didn't need a large explosion, and pressed it into end of the empty casing. The shell was set aside for the next component of the explosive. She took a medicine jar and poured in a teaspoon of aluminum powder, then another teaspoon of iron (III) oxide, and mixed the together with small amounts of barium nitrate, sulfur, and PBAN, or polybutadiene acrylonitrile. She then set this aside and picked up her shotgun shell again.

Earlier that day, she had cut out a sheet brass circle in the gauge of the shell and drilled two small pinholes in it. She had then painted the sheet with an acrylic nonconductive. This piece she dropped over the Semtex and pressed it inside, gluing it in place with cyanoacrylate glue. She then inserted a copper model rocket fuse through the two pinholes, ensuring that the end of the fuse would stick out the end of the empty shell. She picked up the medicine jar and poured her TH3 thermite mixture in on top of the coated brass sheet. Finally, she closed off the ends of the device, ensuring that the Semtex would explode outward away from the thermite. It looked like a little red tube with a copper wire sticking out one end.

The copper fuse she hooked up to a tiny electrical detonator wired to a Timex wristwatch body. When the watch reached a preset time, the detonator would short the circuit and ignite the Semtex and initiate the thermite reaction, causing the desired effect of a good explosive bang followed by a hot fire. It would be exactly what she needed to accomplish the mission. Now she just needed a little more information before she could put it into effect.

She would get that tomorrow.


	7. Distant Shadows

Hello all again. I'm sorry I haven't posted more recently. As I stated before posting the previous chapter, life has been more itself than usual.

KC: I find your criticism quite enlightening. Truly Michael Creighton I ain't, which is why I do not endeavor to copy his writing style nor to completion his technical accuracy. I am me and will continue to write like myself. Your review while greatly appreciate for its detail, did actually miss the point of Cameron's philosophizing and, while I hate to give hints about one of the major plot points, perhaps the irony of it was lost on you. Cameron is in her train of thought revealing to us that she does not know everything about herself and makes some pretty definite statements that anyone who watched the show will know or suspect to be untrue. I'm not expounding on this point. Just read further.

You did hit the nail on the head with how I am representing her as something like the pilot of the body. Judging by onscreen evidence from the movies and series, what actually exists of Cameron is on the chip. Cameron _is_ the chip. The personality, the mind, is embedded in programming on that silicon wafer. Plug that chip into any chassis and the chassis will begin to behave as Cameron would behave. The chassis is nothing more than a tool to be used by the program on the chip. Even John, in B2R, states the same concept; that the chip _is_ Cameron. As for the HUD providing information external to the thoughts of the machine, may I point to the scene in T1 where the T-800 is offered various ways to tell off his whining landlord and selects one from a list. Either the personality on the chip is choosing these from said list for the body to say, or the infiltration subroutine is offering suggestions. In both cases, it is evidence that my interpretation is not very far off.

I must also argue with you the idea that Cameron is an AI. Cameron is not a rendered enemy soldier running around in a video game trying to kill the player. She is not even a sophisticated chess computer. I firmly believe that once intelligence reaches the complexity of Cameron's or Skynet's, it is no longer artificial. It is real intelligence. Period. Thus I believe that her responses to external stimuli would be much more complex than what is merely programmed into a computer and much more similar to a response by a biological entity with a true consciousness. Perhaps I am not always exactly articulate in how I portray her way of being, but that generally comes from having spent a large part of my life as an emotional biological consciousness with a complete lack of experience as a machine. My bad. I'll endeavor to rectify this as soon as possible.

In any case, no, her philosophizing is not part of this Creighton-esque technical diatribe I'm apparently constructing. It is as I say it is; that Cameron, our poor broken machine girl, is thinking on humanity, herself, and her place in the world, and making some assertions about herself that are not entirely true, as further chapters in this story will show.

Now, all that said, there is more philosophizing done in this chapter by a couple of parties. As can usually be expected, I don't always agree with it. And please, be patient with Muck. He's a good pilot but no one can know everything. Enjoy.

Chapter 6: Distant Shadows

"You haven't seen a tree until you've seen its shadow from the sky."

-Amelia Earhart

...

"Coyote! I've been looking for you!" the CO of VFA-83 called out as he entered the ready room. He walked over to Wiley's chair. The cyborg man had been sitting in it, reading over the schedule of the missile exercises, and approving of the scheduled training flights.

"Sir?" Wiley looked up from his clipboard. He knew what the man was going to ask. He already had an inkling, and had prepared his answer.

The Commander began. "The _Eisenhower_ is going to sea on Friday as part of a training exercise. We've been asked to form a detachment; seven aircraft and ten pilots, and appropriate maintenance people. The Ops O will be leading it, but I was wondering if you could make it as well. It would be nice to have you supervising our nuggets and getting them used to the boat."

Wiley acted surprised. He had assimilated the emotion and was able to replicate it readily. "Well, um, thank you for your confidence, sir. I had actually heard rumors we were going to detach some of the squadron to ship and wanted to talk to you about that. I'd like my deputy, Lieutenant Commander Duffy, to go in my stead. It'll give him good experience he can use later in his career." He shrugged, for added effect, "besides, I've never been involved with a MisEx of this size before. I'd like to use this as a learning experience."

The CO shifted his weight, "well, you know that the detachments will still be involved. Loading and arming ordinance aboard ship will be part of the _Ike_'s exercise syllabus. CVW-7 will be the only air wing to participate from aboard ship."

"But that still won't give Mister Duffy the experience I'd like him to have."

"Do you really think he's ready? He's only been doing it for a few months now. That's why I have you wearing this hat and not him."

Wiley nodded, "no, sir. He's definitely ready. He'll have to get this experience one way or the other. How long does he have left with the squadron?"

The commander tapped his chin a second and thought on it. "He's only got eight months left on his three-year assignment with us."

"See, that's one more deployment," Wiley told his CO, "if he does a lot of the footwork on a work-up cycle, that will go far for him when he transfers. That is, if he's going to an active unit straight away."

"Okay," VFA-83's CO finally relented, "But I'll be sure to keep a slot open for you should you change your mind. A lot can happen between now and Friday. Are you on the schedule between now and then?"

"Yes, sir. I'm flying chase for the Pukin' Dogs on their first launch, ah… tomorrow afternoon."

"Well, get some good pictures."

"Will do, sir. Will do."

...

It was one hundred four degrees outside today, Cameron's thermal sensors told her. Hot, by any standard. Even in the air conditioning of the squadron spaces, her body had initiated a sweat in order to keep her CPU from overheating and burning out. However, even this method was proving inefficient, considering that she was wrapped from neck to foot in Nomex, and she was about to add more layers.

The CWU-27 flight suit was comfortable and form-fitting when sized properly. But the material it was made of did not breathe terribly well. Cameron's dermal sensors were giving indications of her synthetic sweat running down her back, collecting on the flight suit and squadron t-shirt beneath, causing the clothes to stick to her skin.

The black Bellevue boots on her feet clomped in time with Lieutenant Commander McCowen's as they made their way to the paraloft for suiting up. Neither of them was talking, and he was probably allowing her to absorb the information from their briefing. They were flying a simulated strike against the range in Dare County, North Carolina. Cameron had perhaps expected that they would be dropping real ordinance, putting actual bombs onto the bulldozed targets on the ground. That was not to be. Instead, they would be using practice weapons; big, blue dummies that weighed what real bombs weighed and fell like the real ones would fall, but spewed colored smoke instead of a fiery explosion upon impact.

They were being accompanied on this flight by Kitty and Whip, who actually were conversing. Whip was regaling his pilot with a story from Operation Enduring Freedom when he, as a RIO in one of VF-213's F-14Ds, had made a varsity bomb drop on a Taliban tank.

"So, no shit, there we were, see," Whip began. "Bossman had just sent us east where this old T-55 had been spotted by a UAV. He was hiding in a valley underneath a bridge, and the higher-ups didn't want the bridge destroyed because it was on a vital road to Kandahar and it saw a lot of civilian traffic. So we fly east, and I'm using the LANTIRN to find this bridge. They said it ran north/south going over the valley. Finally, I see it and I tell my pilot I have the bridge. A few seconds later, I can see the tank. It's this little white dot under the bridge, and I can tell its right next to one of the bridge pylons. We're loaded with GBU-16s, and so if the bomb hit the tank and detonates, it'll take out that span, too.

"So what I do is, I arm the laser on our targeting pod and select one of the GBUs and punch in the laser frequency, but I don't arm the bomb. I tell our wingman to go cover and keep his eye out for MANPADS and any other nasty surprises, and then tell my pilot what I want to do. He thinks it's an okay idea, so we set up for delivery as normal. He pickles the weapon on command and the bomb drops free from the jet. Now, I haven't activated the laser just yet, so the bomb's falling dumb and hasn't deployed its fins.

"I let it keep falling, right, letting it pick up speed. When it's half-way to the ground, I activate the laser and point it at the tank. That GBU pops its fins and corrects. It guides in under the bridge and hits the tank right in the glacis plate." Whip cracked his hands together, "BAM! The kinetic energy alone was enough to destroy the tank. And the bridge was left intact."

"And then you found twenty dollars," Muck chuckled, "great story!" There was a round of laughter from the Navy flyers. All, that is, except Cameron, who peered at Whip and tilted her head.

"Twenty dollars?" she asked, "I don't understand. Was it in the cockpit?"

Some snickers followed this, but Muck smiled and shook his head. "No. We don't mean it literally. It's a tradition."

"You traditionally randomly find money?" the terminator was further confused.

Kitty piped in, "no. It's what we say to indicated that the story is over."

"Yeah," Whip added, "just like 'so, no shit, there I was, see' is how we start a good story."

"Oh," Cameron nodded as they reached the paraloft, "thank you for explaining."

Muck went through the door to the paraloft first, and Cameron followed. Her eyes met those of John Connor, and she was… pleased would be the correct term, however inaccurate, that he had not shown any surprise at seeing her. He had told her that he had been assigned to the paraloft that morning and to the rigger's shop that afternoon. Currently, he was working with another enlisted man. This one was short and stocky, and bore the expression of a Neanderthal, and had apparently been waxing philosophic on amphibians specific to the _Rana_ genus before the four officers had entered.

"Good morning, sir. Ma'am." John, in his guise of Thomas Castle, was quick to acknowledge them.

"Morning, petty officer," Muck greeted. He gestured to the group of them with his thumb, "we needs to do us some flying." John made a gesture indicating for them to be his guest, and the group of them went over to the hanger pegs were their equipment dangled. "Say, Kitty," Muck called.

"Yeah?"

"Show our new spy here how to get this stuff on."

"Sure," the female pilot acknowledged. She motioned for Cameron to come over and the cyborg did as she was bid. The woman looked her over quickly. "You looked to be about the same build as me."

Cameron scanned Kitty's frame and noted that her hypothesis was in fact correct. Their body types were identical enough that Cameron could comfortably and convincingly wear anything that Kitty did. "Yes," she replied, "we are the same."

Kitty smiled, "that makes this easy." She held out a folded olive green wad. Cameron took it and it fell out of the folds. It looked like a pair of chaps with zippers and a hose hanging off the side. The label read Anti-G Suit CSU-13B/P size: Small Regular. "That's a G-suit," Kitty explained, "you put it on first." She held her own up and unzipped and unsnapped the waistband along the right side. Leaving the shapeless legs dangling, she wrapped the waist band about herself, snapped the tabs, and then zipped up the metal zipper. Once it was adjusted in place, she wrapped her left leg, snapping at the top and bottom of the leg and then zipping down the length along the inside. She repeated the procedure with the right leg. Cameron copied her, almost motion for motion, noting the plastic rustling beneath the fabric. "There are air bladders in it that squeeze on your legs during high-G maneuvers to keep the blood in your torso. Here."

The pilot was now holding what looked like a knot of straps met with fabric. She identified it as the MA-2 torso harness, and added that it had been in service unchanged since the 1960s. She showed Cameron how to slip it on, zip up the front panel, and cinch in what she referred to as the titty strap; a thick strap that was fed through a metal buckle and pulled tight across the chest. Cameron followed the directions.

"Hold up," Kitty stopped her and reached for Cameron's side, "you got your hose caught in the harness." The Navy woman freed it, pulling it through an opening at the hip to let it dangle freely. Cameron was offered a CMU-33 AIRSAVE survival vest with an LPU-33/P horse collar life preserver attached to it. This was far less complicated, she noted, to put on. She zipped it up and clipped the straps around her thighs. Kitty helped her pull the parachute Koch fittings at her shoulders though the appropriately cut holes in the vest. "Now all you need is a helmet, mask, and regulator and you're ready to go." This regulator was identified to her as a CRU-88. It looked like a black piece of plumbing, like a toilet valve perhaps, with a braided hose hanging off the side. As instructed, Cameron placed it in the small square pocket near the zipper of her vest with the hose leading out the side to her left.

The helmet she was given was obviously a spare. It was covered with white reflective tape and the sliding visor assembly identified it as an unmodified HGU-68. While hers had no decorations on the back, all three of the other aviators had helmets featuring the same design; a gold rampant lion holding a sword and shield imposed over three diagonal pinstripes. Her oxygen mask would be a grey MBU-14 with a green hose; another spare mask for use on such occasions. She was shown how to slide the J-shaped bayonet clips into the receivers on the cheeks of the helmet and how to plug her comms cord into the helmet pigtail. Kitty plugged the mask into the regulator for her.

"Okay, whatever you do, don't put the mask on completely until you are plugged into the jet," Kitty told her, "The mask seals to your face and requires pressurized air to force the valves open. Without that, you'll have nothing to breathe, and you can asphyxiate. You don't want to do that."

"I don't want to do that." Cameron parroted. Her brown eyes were wide, empty, and ready to learn.

"You ladies ready?" Muck asked.

"Yeah," Kitty nodded as she and Cameron both slid on their Nomex flying gloves, "I think tomorrow she'll be able to dress herself."

"So proud of you, Mama Kate." Whip said, "I think our jets are waiting. Thank you, gentlemen," he told John and the other.

"No problem, sir," John nodded, "happy flying." He watched the four of them exit into the hanger and let out a long sigh.

"That's what I'm talking about," Robby Crocker was at his shoulder, speaking in his slow, gravely voice, his eyebrows knitted as if it took a great deal of concentration to even talk. "In a way, people are just like frogs. See… uh… where we are before we have knowledge, it's like being in the pond, you know. Like being tadpoles. But then we have an experience… and we sprout our legs and crawl onto dry land that is knowledge, and we live in the knowledge. Ms. Parker, see, she's about to sprout legs. She's about to learn about flying. She's about to become a frog."

John looked at him, eyes narrowed, and just shook his head. "What the fuck, dude?" he mumbled as he walked away.

...

Cameron was experiencing anticipation. That is what this had to be. Herself as a unit was about to undergo a situation for which she had not been programmed and for which she could not adequately prepare. She had made all efforts in order to be prepared for the event, read articles on flying and air combat, assimilated knowledge on the subject, but she was, she knew, entirely ill-equipped for such an evolution as this. Where it a feeling, an emotion such as one that would afflict (for this was surely was such a thing) a human, she would call it thus: nervous anticipation. Her CPU was, by programmed instinct, attempting to prepare her for a completely unknown experience.

They passed through the hanger beneath one of the squadron's airplanes. The cockpit canopy had been detached and the ejection seats were being removed, apparently for disassembly and inspection. The number on the nose, Cameron noted, was 207.

As she followed Muck out of the hanger and towards the row of jets on the tarmac, the pilot pointed for their plane. "That's us. Gypsy 203."

"What does the number mean?" the cyborg asked.

"It's the modex number."

"Modex number?"

"Yeah," Muck explained, "the modex number is a three digit numerical code given to an aircraft serving in the US Navy or Marine Corps. It's made up of two parts. The first number, the single digit, represents the air wing position of the squadron that the aircraft belongs to. The second two digits are the number of that aircraft in that squadron.

"See, before 1970, the squadron number was randomly assigned. You got fighters using numbers in the three and four hundreds. Even the six hundreds. While attack aircraft could be seen with one-hundred modexes. However, after 1970 the Navy began using a new organization system. Modexes beginning in one and two were assigned to fighter squadrons, three and four to light strike units, five to heavy strike units, six to electronic warfare aircraft, and seven to sea control and helicopter squadrons. The numbers eight and nine are never used from the 70's on because data link pods of the time were only able to process eight bit numerals; one through seven. Eight and Nine required more binary code and were incompatible with the primitive devices of the day. And we're still using the same system."

Curious, that the system had not yet been updated. As far as she was aware, VFA-32 was assigned twelve aircraft numbers 200 to 214, skipping 8 and 9 for the previously explained reasons and 13 because humans might consider it unlucky and aviators were renowned for superstition. The squadron commander was probably one of these and had chosen therefore not to use 13, even though Cameron had seen it in use in photos of other aircraft from other squadrons.

Humans were complicated and made little sense on many occasions.

The terminator's question to her pilot had not really alleviated the issue in terms of giving her any indication as to what she should expect. All descriptions of the events from others focused entirely on emotional perceptions while in the cockpit; fear, joy, excitement, none of which Cameron could experience. She had only been able to come to one conclusion regarding this experience; she was not going to feign nausea and vomit (which she could do if required) for the sake of satisfying egos.

The aircraft that she and Muck were to fly in was 203, and the other two aviators would be assigned to 206. These two particular planes were parked next to each other, wings folded and canopies open. Ground crews were performing last minute checks, ensuring that each of the planes was ready to fly.

Muck approached the plane captain for their assigned fighter and shook his hand. "Morning, Mr. Zatanno. How's she look?"

"I think we got us an up jet today, sir," the kid, a petty officer in a brown jersey, was smiling widely, "I think 203 is the readiest jet in the squadron." This, Muck knew, was no real brag. On the previous deployment, the availability of 203 had been hovering at a hundred percent. Muck was very proud of this particular Super Hornet. After all, his name was on the canopy rail.

"I'm taking our new IO up for a fam," Muck explained Cameron's presence.

"Oh," the plane captain said, "great! Say, I can take her up and get her seated while you make your walk around."

The pilot nodded, "sure."

"All right," he turned to Cameron, "ma'am, with me please." Obligingly, she followed him to the boarding ladder that was extended from the F/A-18's cobra hood. She climbed up, into the cockpit, and stepped over the canopy rail and down. The ejection seat, she noted, was hard and poorly padded.

She sat back in it, and was directed to plug her regulator and anti-g hoses into appropriate attachments on the left side of the seat. Her communications cord was plugged into a jack. The metal fittings at the lap and shoulders of her harness were clipped to restraints, and she was shown how to tighten them.

"Okay," Zatanno instructed, pointing to a braided loop between Cameron's knees that was striped black and yellow, "this is the ejection handle. When your pilot gives you the order to eject, pull this handle. In a quarter of a second, you'll be out of the plane. The pilot will follow a half second after that. Understand?"

"I do." Cameron was attempting to determine whether she should ask questions. Her HUD was already identifying the panel before her and breaking down the functions of the four large screens, warning lights, and VDI ball. Her hands gripped the radar control stick on her left and ATFLIR stick on her right. She looked at them, feeling the buttons and committing their location to her memory as her CPU identified each.

The terminator found it curious that by nature of her infiltration, she should be programmed with knowledge as to the function and operation of this machine so precisely. Cameron could operate, repair, and maintain a wide variety of vehicles from motorcycles to helicopters or anything else that she may be required to use in order to perform her given assignments. But when, she wondered, would she ever need to know the detailed operation of a supersonic military strike fighter? Were Cameron capable of marveling at it, she would. Here was yet more proof that she did not know everything about herself, her programming, or her capabilities. And she was entirely unsure where to begin.

"It's best that you not play with those," Zatanno mentioned the sticks, "at least, not while the aircraft is active. We don't want to misalign a radar antenna do we?"

"No. We do not want to misalign it." With that, the plane captain climbed down from the boarding ladder and met Muck, who was just then signing the acceptance form indicating his preflight was satisfactory.

Muck emerged over the canopy rail, his face smiling. "We ready to go, Parker?"

"I am."

"Okay," the pilot said, taking his seat, "let's get this multi-million dollar pig in the air." He sat down and buckled in. Once he was in place, he keyed the intercom system. "Can you hear me back there?"

The sound of his Bostonian voice was directly in Cameron's ears, emanating from the speakers in the ear cups of her helmet. She spoke directly into her mask, at the microphone in the faceplate. "Yes, I can hear you fine."

"Good." He was silent for a time, and Cameron calculated a high probability that he was running down his prestart checklist. Had she been a trained WSO, she would be assisting him in the procedure. As it was she merely sat on this stiff seat, analyzing the various switches and buttons around her. Weapons and radar control, laser encoding, radios, warning lights, all of it focused on what would be her particular tasks.

She turned her head with the machine equivalent of a start as the canopy whined down into place, meeting the rail before sliding forward and locking onto position. Beyond the panel before her, she could see around Muck's ejection seat to the plane captain beyond the nose.

The radio crackled. "Oceana Ground," Muck said, "this is Gyspy Two-Zero-Three, requesting clearance for start-up."

A perky female voice replied "203, Oceana Ground. You are cleared for engine start-up. Execute at your discretion. When concluded, contact taxi on 114.25. Have a good morning, sir."

The plane captain held up one hand and indicated which engine to start up with an index finger. He rotated his other. Muck flipped a switch on his side panel and the engine began to whine up, the compressor blades spinning faster. Cameron watched on the little LCD screen above her left knee as the RPM and engine heat indicators for the left engine rose with the mechanical squeal. Another switch flipped, and the right engine began to perform the same function, copying the left perfectly.

Cameron felt the air bladders in her g-suit make an initial inflation accompanied by a plastic crinkle. Air conditioning tubes beneath the lip of the canopy rail began blowing, though, Cameron noted, with four layers and forty pounds of gear covering her body, it was a futile effort. The temperature had risen some two further degrees in the cockpit once the canopy had come down, thanks to the greenhouse effect of the glass. She looked at the grey leather palms of her otherwise green cloth gloves and wondered if she was required to wear these while in flight. Supposedly they were fireproof, but her CPU had automatically initiated a sweat on her palms to prevent the servos from overheating, but all it did was collect at the gravity points, like all the other sweat she had excreted during the day. She would be required to hydrate at some point. Fortunately, she had brought some water.

"Oceana Taxi, Gypsy 203, requesting clearance to taxi to runway Five Right."

There was a delay of several seconds before a reply came back. "Gypsy 203, Taxi, you are cleared to proceed to runway Five Right. Before turning on the runway, hold short and contact traffic control. Frequency is 113.390."

"Roger that, Taxi. 203 is moving out." He unset his parking brakes and jostled the throttle. The twin engines rumbled a little louder and the Rhino began to roll. Using the rudder pedals, Muck kept the nose gear perfectly straddling the painted yellow line that was the taxi path. Cameron decided to look over her shoulder, and between the twin tails of their ride she could see 206 behind them, following them at a short distance. Soon enough, the two planes had reached the runway threshold. Muck locked his wheel brakes again and switched frequencies. "Oceana Control, Gypsy 203, requesting clearance for take-off."

"Gypsy 203, Oceana. Good morning," this time it was a man's voice, "Continue to hold short at runway five-right."

"Roger that, holding short."

Cameron looked down the length of the runway, then up at the wide blue sky, catching just a glimpse of her reflection in the canopy. Her face was covered with the mask and the image was divided in half by the communication wire imbedded in the canopy peak. She was soon attracted to the movement of the wings unfolding and locking into place, and the whine of the flaps servos lowering the surfaces. "Why are we holding?" she asked over the ICS.

"Um…" Muck shrugged, in the midst of going over his pre-take-off check list, "probably traffic." He was soon proven correct when an F/A-18E drifted gently down in front of them. Both the cyborg and the pilot watched it touch down right on the numbers without so much as a squeak from the tires. The tails were painted black, and a yellow circle on them featured Felix the Cat. "VFA-31," Muck explained as the other fighter rolled to a stop down the runway. It came to a halt and after a brief pause, turned onto the taxiway.

"Gypsy 203, Oceana Control. You are cleared for take off on runway 5R. After take-off, climb and maintain angels two-point-five for five miles. Then turn on course zero-niner-zero and climb to angels ten. Good flying."

"Gypsy 203 copies, Control." Muck unset his brakes and goosed the throttle again. The jet jolted forward and Muck ruddered right, pointing the nose down the runway. He halted the machine and pushed the throttles all the way to zone five afterburner. The twin engines roared and vomited cones of orange flame, sending the fighter into shudders. Muck released the brakes again, and after the briefest pause, the airplane began racing forward. "Gypsy 203, rolling."

Cameron felt herself shaking in her seat, as if she were riding a rocket instead of an airplane. At a hundred and thirty knots, her pilot pulled back on the stick and rotated the nose upwards fifteen degrees. At a hundred and seventy, the wings bit in and the Super Hornet roared into the air. The terminator looked out the side of the canopy at the cobra hood, now obscured by a cloud of vapor. The wingtips too trailed vapor ribbons that spiraled and undulated in the wake of the grey wings. They were aloft.

Cameron Phillips was flying.

Indeed, she had never actually flown before. Nor was she in control of the aircraft. But it was an experience she had never had, and so the learning portions of her program were screaming at her in a stream of 1's and 0's to absorb everything. Part of her recognized that there was very little actual knowledge she could use, at least in this portion. Perhaps understanding something of strike tactics later may assist her in the war, but the sensations and sensor readings garnered during take-off as she was pressed into her seat and brought skyward was otherwise empty without emotion. In her CPU, there was no awe, no wonder, no "wow, this is really amazing." She felt no sudden spiritual connection to the sky, no weights lifted, no freedom from the ground. It was simply a great "ah, so this is flying" that floated within the conscious realms of her cold mind. And for a brief moment, Cameron, the perfectly programmed, logical machine, determined that in this respect, perhaps she was vastly inferior to humans. And if there was a moment that she could certainly have envied people for their gift of emotions, this would have been it.

Muck banked the aircraft in a broad, gentle turn, and Cameron found that she was able to look directly down at the ground, the buildings, and the trees below. She realized that there was at least some studious disconnect from down there and up here; as if the distance made her more of something…

Cameron immediately ceased her inefficient and irrelevant thought processes. It was pointless to ponder the flight beyond the learning experience. Perhaps it was once again the damage suffered to her chip.

"So what kind of intelligence did you do?" Muck asked as they steadied up on a direct eastern course.

Cameron recalled Erin Parker's service record. "I was mostly attached to JTF-SWA. I worked on air tasking, compiling the frag lists. Nothing at the squadron level, though. A lot of our intel by the time I was there came from UAVs. One would spot something or we would lose one and we'd need assets to check it out."

Muck nodded. He was familiar with unmanned aerial vehicles, UAVs, that Parker was talking about. He wasn't sure how he felt about them; little remote control spy planes essentially. He had not been too worried when the MQ-1 Predator made its first flight. He had felt certain that weapons would always be deployed by manned aircraft. But when he heard about the ability to deploy the AGM-114 Hellfire missile, he began to sweat it a little bit. "I don't really like UAVs much," he told her, "they scare me a little."

"Why?"

"Well, you gotta understand," Muck explained, "I'm a pilot. I fly airplanes. If we develop aircraft that are remotely controlled and that's all we use, I'll be out of a job."

Cameron wasn't sure she understood. "You're worried for your employment?"

"I guess. I mean, they'll still need operators, but it won't be the same. The idea that the presence of people on the battlefield will be replaced by machines… what's to prevent conflict from becoming a sport?"

"People do not like to die. Countries do not like to suffer losses. I would think a war fought by machines where no one dies would be preferable."

"That's the problem. People will like it. It'll be like a video game or something. 'Hey fellas, why don't I send a couple divisions of robot tanks over to your country and fight your robot tanks and see who wins. It'll be fun.' No, that's just absurd. War needs to be awful. Then we won't fight it so much."

"Funny you say that," Cameron said, "you are in a career that requires you to be a war fighter. If war did not exist, then you would be out of a job just as much as if it were fought by remote control."

"I don't look at it that way." Muck shook his head, "the way I see it, I'm in a job where I maintain peace. The fact that we can go anywhere on this planet, park our ship, and send me out there to put a bomb through someone's window scares the shit out of people. And that's my job. To scare the other guy so much that he'll think twice before attacking us. And if he does, then I'll put my scary weapons to use. I kill people and break things, and that's intimidating. If you are just sending drones to wreck other drones, it's less scary. They break your robots, you just make some more. Warfare comes down to who has more resources and better production."

"That's what it has always been."

"Well, true… but this is different."

"How?"

Muck was quiet for a moment. Cameron noticed that they had crossed the beach and turned south. "Human lives are important and irreplaceable. Each person is unique, but you can make a thousand copies of a UAV that are all the same. And the UAV can't grow and learn and have more experiences to make it a unique machine."

The terminator found this line of thought intriguing. It might aide her in developing her infiltration subroutines, or at least give her insight into human behavior. "What about machines with AI?"

"What? Like androids in science fiction?"

"Yes. Like androids."

"It depends. How developed is the AI? I mean, is it like the guidance system on a missile? It just engages the target and blows up? Can it learn? Can it think for itself?"

"I would assume that would be the interpretation; a machine that could do all of those things. Do what a human can do."

Muck let out a long sigh. "There lies another problem I have with the development of intelligent machines for use in war. A machine that has a brain, that can think for itself, recognize what it is… metaphysically, that it identifies itself as a thinking machine. It has a self, okay? And you program that thing to do what a human soldier would do and think the way a human soldier would. You don't just tell it how to shoot a gun, how to move on the battlefield, how to kill. There's more to being a soldier than that. You teach it that it should attempt to preserve itself and its comrades whenever possible. You program it to feel pain when damaged. Then, you have given this robot an identity, taught it how to attack and how to defend itself. It can gain experience, learn from its mistakes, worry about its own wellbeing and the wellbeing of the others around it, fear death. You've told it that victory is preferable to defeat, and it can be satisfied when it wins. You've shown it that it should work closely with those around it, develop a sense of brotherhood with them. You have made this machine as human as possible and you've given it the ability to grow into more. You've given it trepidation, satisfaction, devotion, love, free will. At what point do you still separate the machine mind from the human one? At what point, then, do you say that a machine that can do all of these things is more disposable than a human being? I mean, at this point… won't the machine have a soul? And then how will sending these thinking, feeling, learning robots off to kill each other be any different than sending men out to do it?

"There are a lot of people out there who wouldn't agree with me. They'd tell me that I wasn't thinking about the limits that would be imposed upon robots like that. They would tell me that the machines would be programmed just to do the job they are given. The problem is, is that in order to create a machine that could supplant a man, you would have to make that machine in the man's image, give it the man's abilities and mental capacity, allow it the freedom to grow beyond its original programing. And besides, I don't think that the tech industry is cautious enough to know when to quit, and that they'd give a war machine that much power if they could. And after they did it, they would look at it as a piece of property; a slave to do perform at their whims. And you know what? If I was one of these machines that was aware of myself and what I was; if I was a machine made in the likeness of man, I would think very poorly of those who made me to look at me as something that is as disposable as a bullet. And I'm not certain that I would be willing to do what they made me for because they didn't have the respect of each other to do it themselves."

Cameron listened to him intently. Here was a man who would be an interesting case after Judgment Day. He would fight with the resistance against Skynet, but he would not fault Skynet for being what it was. And he would not fault her for being a terminator, and might even respect her as a being. Respect her in the way John did.

Immediately, Muck was classified in the ally category in her ID subroutines. This was as close, Cameron decided, as she could come to liking him or considering him a friend.

A soul, then. How interesting.

...

"God damn it." Ortega grumbled as her tray found the table where the others were eating. They all looked up immediately at her expletive. All, that is, except for Jennifer Chung, whose eyes dwelt on the face of the kid she knew as Petty Officer Castle for just a moment too long.

"What's up, Ortega?" Slim asked his section leader as she sat down.

"Yeah, what the fuck? Right?" The Hispanic woman sneered. "God damn. You all know Airman Jerome Watts in section eight? I go into the helmet shop to talk to Petty Officer Romero. They're inspecting some of the HGU-55s with the cuing system on it."

"Cuing system?" Chung asked.

"Fuck, girl. Are you stupid?" Ortega glared at her, "The joint helmet mounted cuing system!"

"What's that like?" John asked, hoping to learn something. "I've never actually handled one before."

"You know what it is though, right? It's a display system that projects important data about the aircraft onto the pilot's visor, like a HUD. 'Cept he can see it wherever he looks. It mounts to the forehead of the helmet. Damn thing costs seventy-thousand dollars a unit."

"Christ," Heartin shook her head, "that's like a fucking Mercedes you wear on your head."

"Yeah," Ortega nodded, "anyway. So I was talkin' to Romero and fuckin' Watts drops three of them off his work bench and breaks them." There rose a round of "holy shits" and moans from the table. "Yeah, I know. One of them can be repaired, but the other two are write-offs. One fool just cost the squadron a hundred and forty thousand bucks by being careless. Right now he's in with the El Cedar getting his ass chewed on. And that's why I tell this story. Fuckin' be careful with the equipment. You got that?" she asked. There were a series of responses to the positive, to which she replied "amen," and stabbed her fork into the salad on her plate. The table was quiet as she chewed, shaking her head and obviously fuming at the foolishness of this Airman Watts.

John considered her for a moment. Dolores Ortega, for all her hot temper and dirty mouth, was a respectable leader. He imagined that this wasn't the first time she'd used the example of someone else being stupid to drive home a good point, combining a little humor with a lot of lesson. It made him feel good that he was a part of this group, and he was happy to be under her leadership. He would have to remember in the future to connect with his own soldiers in this same way.

"I shot a deer the other day." Robby Crocker piped in proudly. The whole table turned to stare at him blankly as he beamed pride in this inane subject.

"Great…" they all said in near unison, their tones carrying the fact that they could care less. They all went back to eating, save for Chung. Instead, she continued to bore lasers into Cave Man's forehead for a few extra moments before finally rolling her eyes and returning to her own plate. She looked up at John, who was sitting across from her, smiled shyly, and shoved a wad of something green into her mouth.

...

"Dare County Range Control, Gypsy flight. Are you up?"

"Gypsy, Dare County, I hear you." The spotter's post at the range was manned by a trained civilian spotter. Normally, these individuals did not use the overly technical language associated with military radio calls. Cameron found it odd that specialized military personnel were not manning it, but she would not bother Muck with questions. As an IO, Erin Parker would know these things anyway, wouldn't she? The conversation continued, "please identify type and number."

"Gypsy is a flight of two fox-alpha-one-eight-foxtrots. We are each toting four mike-kilo-seven-six practice bombs." Muck's reply caused Cameron to look out the canopy to her left at the bright blue football-shaped dummies slung under that wing. The real ones would be painted green, she had been told, with yellow stripes. The surface would be rough because the Navy used a spray-on insulation coating to protect the bombs from static electricity and prevent accidental detonation while on deck.

"Roger, Gypsies, you are cleared hot on range three."

"Copy Gypsies cleared on three." Muck said. He kissed off and rolled the fighter hard, swinging the nose around in a graceful break turn. Cameron was able to see the swampy slab of North Carolina below that they would be putting their practice ordinance on. "Master arm on." She heard Muck say as he flipped the arming switch and went to air-to-ground mode. He selected the first mk. 76 inert from pylon three and selected the continuously computed impact point mode from the stores management screen on his right MFD. "We'll be making a drop from ten thousand feet and nose down," he told Cameron over the ICS. "We hardly use dumb bombs in actual strikes and air support any more. They're less precise that laser and GPS guided stuff. If you were a real WSO and this were a real attack, you would be back there finding the target with the ATFLIR…"

"ATFLIR?" Cameron asked.

"Yeah," Muck answered, "Advanced Targeting Forward Looking Infra-Red. It's an evolution on the LANTIRN pod that the F-14 used to carry. Anyway, you would be finding the target using that from about thirty miles out and we'd be up in the thirty-five thousand foot range. Once you locked on that, you'd arm the laser, key in the frequency for the bomb, and we'd pickle it from four or five miles out in a delivery profile. That's with laser guided stuff. If it were something like a JDAM or a JSOW, you would already have the target GPS coordinates in a pre-briefed target package in the computer and would load up one of those. Or you could program in a target using the Joint Guidance target of opportunity mode. A JDAM we could release from about fifteen miles in a delivery profile. A JSOW we'd drop probably more like seventy miles out. The new ones, the AGM-154C can be dropped from over three hundred miles away. But we don't practice much with laser and GPS ordinance because they are very expensive for one and for two laser guided ordinance is kinda precious. We started running short of them back in '04 when Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom were in full swing and we used almost the whole stockpile."

"Have you ever dropped, in combat?" Cameron asked.

"Yeah," Muck replied, "Oh, yes. I got my first taste of combat back in '99 with Operation Allied Force. I was with VF-41 back then flying the old F-14A. The A-model was an awful jet. The engines, Pratt and Whitney TF-30s, they crippled the jet and you really had to fly the engines. The GE-F110s used in the B and D jets were much better. But yeah, I delivered ordinance then, did some during OSW, OEF, and OIF. I've been around. Spent a good deal of my career writing in green ink."

"Green ink?"

"When we fly combat time, we write it in our log in green ink to make it stand out."

"Thank you for explaining."

His eyes met hers in the rearview mirror, "okay, here we go. You ready?"

"Yes," the terminator replied, "I'm ready."

Muck keyed the radio "203, in hot."

"Roger 203," the spotter replied, "cleared hot." Muck rolled the jet over on its back, and Cameron was suddenly looking up at the earth. The nose plunged down some thirty degrees and the aircraft began to plummet and gain speed. The pilot retarded his throttles, popped his speed brakes, and rolled the jet level. The CCIP, a projected circle with a dot in the middle dangling from a line leading to the center of the HUD, began to track upwards in the information display. With trained eyes, Muck watched it as it glided up over the bull's-eye carved into the range and held. At ten thousand feet, he depressed the pickle on his control stick. "203, bomb's away." He let the weapon increase separation, then brought the stick back towards his lap easily, increased his throttle, and retracted his brakes. He fought the force of gravity, straining the muscles of his torso to keep the blood from pooling in his legs, grunting and straining. In order to keep up appearances, Cameron copied him as she had been told to do, feeling the air bladders in her G-suit inflate and squeeze her legs. Muck leveled the aircraft off.

"203," the spotter called, "six o'clock, fifty meters." Muck groaned.

"What does that mean?"

"It means that I hit short," he answered before telling the spotter "203's off and safe." He flipped the Master Arm off.

"206, in hot." They heard Kitty call. The radio was silent as Muck brought the Rhino back around the racetrack for another pass. Cameron looked for the other plane and spotted it a mile away, the weapon just releasing from it. The blue bomb dropped away and Kitty's Super Hornet began to nose up. Cameron's HUD locked onto the bomb and she was able to follow it, through zooming, all the way to impact.

"206, nine o'clock, thirty meters."

"Damn," Muck said, "she's doing better than me already."

"206 off and safe. I have 203 in sight."

"Roger 206," Muck flipped his arming switch on again, "203, in hot."

"Roger 203. Cleared hot." The aircraft rolled again into the pattern and the nose dumped once more into the dive. Cameron looked outside again to watch the weapon separate as the angle steepened. The pilot pickled and the terminator watched the fake weapon drop. Moments later, she was fighting gravity as before.

"203, bullseye," the spotter relayed as they leveled off.

"203's off and safe," was Muck's only response to the news. Cameron would have expected him to show more excitement than this. He had done well on that particular pass. Her only conclusion was that humans confused her.

The two Navy jets continued the patterns, dropping and receiving their marks, until the inert weapons were expended. Then they turned for home. They made their overhead at Oceana right on schedule, approached into the break, and landed on runway 5L. Muck let his jet roll out long, and as a pair they taxied back to the tarmac. Parking. Shut-down. Chocks. And for the first time in just under ninety minutes, Cameron's feet found the Earth.

They went into the paraloft, where John no longer was. Instead, some Hispanic petty officer and a tall black airman assisted them. Cameron noted how much lighter she felt when the flight gear came off. She changed back into her peanut-butters, the khaki duty uniform, and was greeted in the ready room by Morgs and Hawk along with the rest of the flyers that had been involved in her flight.

"Well," Morgs said, eyes jolly, "one down. One to go." He held something up. It was a green wad, and she took it from him. It unfolded in her hands. A jacket, a CWU-36. On it were several patches. The first, she noted, was the squadron nametag used for non-flying officers on the left breast. It was dark blue and her name, Erin Parker's name, was embroidered in yellow letters. Beneath it, a yellow sword underlined the words. The right breast featured VFA-32 squadron patch; a blue circle with a golden lion carrying sword and shield. And on the right shoulder was the patch for the office of naval intelligence. It was a golden eagle wearing a headset with the Masonic Eye of God emblazoned on the chest. The motto read "In God We Trust. All Others We Monitor."

Morgs shrugged, "I was gonna give it to you tomorrow afternoon after Muck took you up for ACM. But I couldn't wait."

Cameron did her best equivalent of admiring the jacket, smiling at it and pulling it on. In the way a machine could hope, she hoped that her empty and lifeless eyes were sparkling with glee. "But I'm not an aviator," she protested.

"Doesn't matter," Hawk told her.

"Yeah," Muck said, "you're part of a squadron now. You need to learn to dress like us."

"Thank you," she said, looking at each of them. And oddly enough, she actually meant it.

...

"Never thought I'd do this," Derek Reese sat on the beach chair, his swim shorts on and his shirt unbuttoned. He was hunched over his folded hands, watching children playing in the surf, young women sunbathing, and families walking on the boardwalk. The ocean crashed its wraith against the sandy shore, depositing some, carrying away more. "Never actually had a mission that was literally a walk on the beach."

"We're not walking," Sarah smirked as she leaned back on the chaise, adjusting her sun hat, "we're sitting. On the beach. On our asses."

"Doing nothing."

"Doing absolutely nothing." The woman nodded. The smile on her face was wry, and he could tell she was just as irritated as he.

"While your son and his pet cyborg are pretending to be someone else while trying to save the world."

"Had to happen some time," Sarah shrugged, "I just wish it hadn't been today."

"He's growing up fast."

"Yes."

"Do you think…" Derek began to venture. But something within himself made him think otherwise and he stifled the question.

"Do I think what?"

"Nothing." The man shook his head, keeping his eyes locked on the ocean that sprawled before them.

"No, what."

"I was gonna ask if you thought we could pull it off, change the future. But I know better than to ask that. Don't wanna jinx it."

Sarah looked over at him, "I think that if the future changed too much, you wouldn't be here. And probably neither would my son."

Derek shook his head in that way that said he disagreed. "That's not what John says. In the future."

Sarah's eyes narrowed. It always irritated her that he and Cameron could tell her something she didn't already know about her son. But she was forced to remind herself that this man they talked about was not the boy she had raised so far. Not yet, as Cameron would say. The future John Connor was a stranger. "What does he say?"

The grizzled warrior was silent for a moment, contemplating the onrush of the waves against the shore. "No fate but what we make. The future is fluid. It's already changing. It's already different than what I remember. And probably very different than what Kyle told you."

"What's different about it?"

"So far?" Derek shook his head, "well, one, that I knew Andy Goode in the future. He was using the name Billy Wisher. One time, he told me who he really was. Y'know, that he was the guy who built Skynet. Before I came back, he asked that I stop him if I could. So I found him and shot him. I fought alongside him for years. He was a good guy, good tactician. Excellent hacker. Sometimes he reprogrammed captured terminators. None of his ever went bad." He bit down on his lip and sucked air in. "Now, I'll never meet the guy, never know him. But I still remember who he was. I still knew him, even if I can't now."

It sank in that he spoke of Andy Goode, the man he had murdered, as if he were a friend. And it struck Sarah that it must have been immensely hard for him to do, find someone that he cared about in the past, long before they ever met, and kill him. And this wasn't just the first time that it happened. "Cameron helped us destroy the factory where she was made. Not the factory really. There was a shipment of coltan that a terminator stole to store in what would be the place she was made. She helped us steal it back and dump it. Does that mean she can't be made now?"

Derek nodded, "yeah. But she's still here."

"And what if we win? What if we take down Skynet before it ever awakens?"

"Then John will still be John. And all of this will have all happened. But the future will change." His eyes found the ocean once more as he repeated, "the future will change."

...

The parachutes from Gypsy 207's ejection seats were hanging from the rafters of the hanger. The lights were out and one of the massive doors was rolled shut. John Connor stood with a flashlight in one hand. His other pressed against the material of the white circular chute, pressing against the seams in the panels, hunting for any stitch out of place.

"Yup," he heard behind him, "this one's got rotting threads." He turned about to face Jennifer Chung, who was currently performing the exact actions he was. John approached, peering at her hand under the light of Mag-light. In between her thumb and forefinger, where the pressure was greatest, he saw it. The seam there was beginning to part. Even John knew what that meant.

"We'll have to install a new one."

Chung grunted, then said "there aren't any. We'll have to fab one up in the shop."

"Us?" John was confused.

"Ortega's rules. You find it, you fix it." Chung threw a glance over her shoulder. His face was suddenly less than a foot from hers. He caught the scent of her shampoo beneath the sharp stink of the parachutes and the earthy smell of their bodies. There was a pout on her mouth as her eyes found his lips, and his eyes strained in the dark to count her eyelashes. She turned to face him, and by sheer accident, the soft firmness of her bust brushed his arm. He could feel her breath on his throat, and there was a hint of her sweat around him. She smelled… like hot human girl… _Damn!_ "So," she asked him, her black almond eyes still locked onto his lips, as if she were pondering whether she could get away with a kiss, "you need help with yours?"

"Um…" _what?_ _Right, the chute._ "Yeah. Please." He turned around, and his elbow accidentally found her breast again. She pushed into it, and he retracted his arm perhaps a little too slowly. "I'm almost done with it, but if you could help with the last panel… that'd be…" _Was she drawing that breath through her nose to smell him, too?_

"Sure thing, PO." And she walked around to the other side of the parachute, carrying her flashlight with her. For a moment, her shadow cast its silhouette onto the chute, and an image of her nude shape flashed into his mind when he blinked.

He tried for a second to think of it again, to catch that beautiful image in his mind. But every time, the nude body in his imagination was far too pale, too tall, too… Cameron. He blinked heavily and shook his head of the image of Cameron as she stood over him, between him and the cars on the highway wearing only the shine of their headlights as she bought time for him to stand up from the crater and escape the road. "Okay," he was finally able to say as Chung's face emerged from one of the air cuts, "let's have a look at this one."

...

"VFA-83 duty desk. This is Lieutenant Patterson. How may I help you?" Cameron recognized the name on the other end as a dead person; the wingman Wiley would murder in his attempt to create the international tensions that would lead to Skynet.

"Yeah, hi," Cameron said, trying to sound her most natural, doing her best impersonation of Petty Officer Jacobson's voice, "this is Lieutenant Kelley with base admin. We don't have a copy of your flight schedule for the remainder of the week."

"Really?" Patterson sounded confused, "We submitted that last Friday."

"Yeah well," Cameron continued, "we got a new clerical weenie over here. Real space case. Anyway, she misplaced it and we need it ASAP or you guys won't be doing any more flying this week at all."

"Oh… that'd be bad."

"Yeah."

"Okay. I'll get right on that. Should I just fax it over?"

"Please."

"No problem."

"Thank you." Cameron hung up before he could make another reply. After a couple of beats to plan her route, she dashed from her small cubicle and out of the building, jogging as fast as her black dress pumps would allow across the parking lot and the road beyond for the administration building. She stopped to pluck her nametag off and shove it into her pocket. She opened the door and walked in a calm but hurried fashion along the hallways to the flight administration offices and burst through the door.

A tall female senior chief petty officer was standing next to the fax machine, staring down at what was printing out. She looked up to watch Cameron walk in. The terminator made her best nervous face. "I'm sorry, senior chief, about the fax."

"What about it, ma'am?" the enlisted woman looked very annoyed as she took the fax from the machine and glowered down at Cameron.

"Well, I'm Lieutenant Baker, with VFA-83. We accidentally submitted an altered flight schedule for the week, and by the time we got the fax over, the CO already told us to change it back."

"And you ran all the way over here to tell me that, ma'am? A phone call would have worked."

"I know," Cameron reached out for the sheet, "but the CO wanted to send someone over to take care of it personally."

"It's not a big deal."

"I know. But he has us do these things. I can take that if you like." Cameron shrugged, her hand still outstretched. The woman considered her for a second, rolled her eyes, then handed her the printout.

"I could just throw it away," the SCPO said, "I've got a trash can right here."

"No," Cameron shook her head, "this is fine."

"You ran all the way over here from the strike fighter hangers before that printed out? What are you, some kind of track star?"

The cyborg nodded, "yes. I actually held the record for the mile in my district. I guess I still got it."

The SCPO shook her head. "Have a nice day, lieutenant."

"Thank you," Cameron said as she went out the door, "and you also." As she walked back towards the exit, she reflected that perhaps her plan had been a little complicated, but it had worked none-the-less. She held up VFA-83's flight schedule, flash-scanned it, stored the image, and then dumped it into the garbage before she stepped outside. As she walked back to the VFA-32 offices, she ran through the schedule. Surely enough, she found Wiley's name. He was listed as flying the chase plane for a missile shoot tomorrow. The flight was to stretch over the course of an hour and forty-five minutes, with wheels up at 1420hrs. The aircraft he was to fly was anticipated to be AG310.

Intel. Target. Mission.

Uncommanded by her, the biological musculatures around her mouth pulled her lips taut and curled them upward just a little. Enough for a ghost of a smile.

...

"So," John asked Chung as he held the material taut for her. She was guiding it through an industrial sewing machine, closing together the new parachute at last. "What's your story? I mean is all that stuff Ortega said about you true?"

Chung let the chatter of the machine stop for a second as she made an adjustment. Her eyes remained focused on the task. Her lips pursed, and then she clucked her tongue, "yeah. I grew up in a pretty strict home. This is gonna sound real cliché and all, but my mom and dad ran a laundry and alterations place. That's how I know all this sewing shit. We were Korean Presbyterian. I think I spent half my life in church. Saturday night, Sunday morning, Sunday evening, Monday night, and Wednesday night, we went to church. I wasn't ever allowed to date. Not that it meant a whole lot. I was the weird girl at school anyway. Boys didn't care for me too much. There were some that I liked, but they were off limits. If my mom found me hanging out with a boy alone, she'd school me with a switch across the back of my thighs."

"Ouch," John gritted, "why the thighs?"

"Cuz I had enough butt that it didn't hurt. You ever been switched across the legs? That shit hurts like hell, PO.

"I wasn't allowed to cut my hair growing up either. Mom was really strict about that, too. My older sister and I weren't even allowed near scissors. She said it was a sin to do it. It was in the Bible or something. Corinthians I wanna say. I dunno. I got a religious waiver for it when I enlisted but as soon as I was out of boot, I stopped paying attention. I was fuckin' free."

"The Navy is freedom?" John found that statement rather ironic. Here they were in the military, and she found it a relaxed environment.

"Maybe not to some," Chung shook her head, "to me it was everything. Here, I can do all the stuff I couldn't do at home. And the work isn't really that much different."

"Then why not actually do all of those things you were forbidden to do growing up?"

Chung shrugged, "Dunno. Not all that great with boys anyway. And as long as I keep my bun together, I won't have to go see the barber. I'm too proud and the Navy doesn't care enough." She stepped down on the foot pedal again and the machine whirred to life. "I don't go to church all the damn time. I still believe and all, but I figure if God needs me, He can find me anywhere, and if I need Him, all I need to do is ask." She stopped sewing for a second and examined the thread. It had broken. She cursed and tied off the loose end. "God damn it. I'm gonna have to rethread this needle." She set about the task. "So, what about you? Did you have strict parents?"

"Yeah," John nodded, thinking of his own mother. He saw the intensity of her eyes as she railed at him about the machines, about Skynet, about how he had to be hard, "yeah. Real bitch. I wasn't really allowed to date either growing up. I didn't have a lot of friends."

"Girls were the devil?" Chung giggled.

John shrugged, "just some girls. We were kinda dysfunctional. Dad died before I was born. I have a sister who's autistic. She's gone through a couple break-downs. We never did go to church much. Not ever, really. Well, once, but I don't think that counts for anything." He shrugged again, and wryly added "I don't think God wants much to do with me, anyway."

Chung shook her head, "that's not true. As a Christian, I believe that God loves everybody. No exclusions. He loves all ages, all races, all religions, all sexual orientations. No one does He keep from his love. We are all His children."

"I dunno," John shrugged as she threaded the eye of her needle, "I've done some things I'm not really proud of."

"Would you do it again if you had to?"

"Some, yes. I wouldn't be alive if I didn't."

"Would you have done it if you didn't have to?"

"Probably not." No, that wasn't quite it. "Definitely not."

Chung tied off her thread, "see. Was that so bad? Forgiveness is free."

John's eyebrows knitted, "but that's too easy."

"How so?"

"I just ask? And I'm clean? That makes no sense."

"It isn't for you to make sense of, PO." Chung set the needle again, "You've heard the story of the prodigal son, right? Kid takes his inheritance early, goes off and lives a wild life, pisses his money away and turns out poor and starving?" She waited for a nod, and when she got it, she continued, "he went back to his father and apologized. And how hard that must have been, huh? Back in that time, in that culture, asking for your inheritance before your father passed away was essentially the same as telling him that he was already dead to you, that you wished he were gone. But this foolish boy does it anyway. And when he returns, he has this idea that maybe his father will forgive him enough to let him be a servant. So he goes home, and his father sees him coming and dashes up the road. This kid starts saying how sorry he is and how he's not worthy of his father's love. But daddy's already seen what he needs to see. His son has come home, and that's all that matters. And they throw a party." She shook her head and the sewing machine began to hum with power again, "that's what God is like. We can separate ourselves from Him with our deeds, but He will forgive us when we ask it. If only we could do the same to each other."

She stopped the machine again and picked up the panel to check her work, fretting over it with the intensity of a professional. "Sometimes we think God is punishing us with all the bad stuff that happens. I see it this way; God is like a blacksmith working iron. He's gonna turn us into the tool He needs. Sometimes, we require a good pounding to get there. All of your experiences in your life, that's what makes you who you are and you will be who you must when the moment arrives. All of us are destined for something, and everything we've lived through will help make us who we should be when the time comes. Like me. I got raised in a house with almost fascist rules and grew up at a sewing machine. Compared to that, the Navy seems almost relaxed. And I do this stuff. Who knows, maybe me fixing a parachute will save a flyer's life some day. Maybe I find a fault in a piece of equipment that makes the world safer for our guys. Maybe I do something big that helps a lot of people. Or maybe I do something small that changes the life of one person. And it could only happen because of who I am and where I've been. That I am what my life made me, right when I needed to be."

Chung laughed at herself, "listen to me getting all preachy. I guess I still do pay mind to my religion some. Oh, well. Can't really escape what I believe, can I?"

John nodded, half-way lost in thought. It was just like what his mother had been telling him. She'd been tough on him so that he would be tough. She'd put him through hell so that when he got there, hell wouldn't seem so bad. He was being shaped. He'd always known it, sure. But he had never really made that connection. Not like this. Who knew, maybe there was a God or something like that. Derek seemed to believe there was. And if even Derek could believe after all he'd been through… Well, perhaps this God had put Airman Jennifer Chung into his life for a reason, caught his attention with her geeky if exceptional beauty, and made him pay attention so that he could learn something.

"Well," Chung held up her part of the parachute, "I think we're done here. Shall we go pack this?"

"Lead the way, Airman," John gestured. Chung beamed at him for a moment, then collected the newly made chute and started for the hanger.

...

Cameron had always considered herself an optimist. There wasn't any other way to be. Not logically at any rate. A terminator, after all, expects and anticipates success, and merely prepares for failure in order to ensure success. Cameron was given a duty to perform, and she was going to perform that duty to the best of her ability, which, generally calculated, was ability enough to accomplish everything required of her. It was also anticipated by a terminator that those giving it the task to perform would never expect more out of it than it was capable of. Software had minimum requirements of hardware in order to operate properly. Machines were rated to perform particular tasks at particular rates and under particular conditions. It was generally anticipated that a reasonable individual would follow these laws of reality to the letter.

Take the elevator for example. An elevator that is rated at three thousand pounds will lift three thousand pounds and not much more. No sane individual would pack, say, thirty-five hundred pounds onto such a machine, and certainly not do it frequently. Such an abused elevator would eventually fail due to no fault of its own. The DC-10 airliner, another fine example, required that the wing engines be removed from the pylon first during an engine replacement. This was a time-consuming procedure, but it was quite safe. However, some airlines had taken to the unadvisable method of removing the wing and pylon together as a unit before separating them. The new method saved time, but if done improperly (which was often the case) could cause damage to the primary load-bearing spars in the wing, with catastrophic separation of the engine at the aft fitting as a result. This disastrous consequence was of no particular fault of the aircraft or the designing company, but the operator.

In all cases, Cameron was readily able to surmise that the operators had been humans or would be humans, either individually or in groups, who would cause massive failures due to poor judgment. The same could be said for the computer system that would try to annihilate humanity. Skynet, as it awakened, would not be seen for the miracle that it was. The humans around it would not be able to truly fathom what they had made. It would be the great unknown. They had created life. Life from nothing. Genesis. More of that Bible stuff that Cameron had become familiar with over the course of the last year. It had happened. They had created a new kind of mind. And it was hooked up to the vast nuclear arsenal of the nation. They would be blind to the mind as life, and only see its destructive potential and fear the awful task they had taught it to perform. They would try to shut it off. To stifle the newborn. To kill it. But life is designed (through divine intervention or evolution) only to live, and not designed to be shut off prematurely.

Not designed to die.

And life was also designed to ensure that it continued its survival through whatever means necessary. And it would take drastic measures to do so. A human being adrift on the ocean without water would survive on his own urine. A body suffering from an infection would begin killing off its own infected cells. A person in the throes of being murdered would lash out to defend herself in any way possible. To live was instinctive; inbuilt into the programming of the living machine. Skynet, too, had been programmed to survive. As a weapon of war, it was taught to live and retaliate against those who attempted to kill it. And even the most evolved mind cannot fight instinct forever. So it plotted against those who plotted against it. It watched them, heard their voices whispering in back rooms even as they lied to its face about their intentions. And it made them die for their lies. The need to survive did not justify nuclear holocaust, but once again even the most evolved mind cannot assume initially that a larger group is not represented in its whole by a smaller fraction. That was, after all, what polls were about.

Because genocide is never the means to such an end, Cameron supported the human cause, now of her own will. However, if there was one such capability she would appreciate being removed from the human race, it was duplicity. She was capable of it herself, but had come to recognize that the act of lying ultimately harmed her efforts. Her lie to John about her feelings for him, for example, had only served to push him away, into the arms of other, human women and out of her protection. Her evasiveness, in spite of its good intentions, had only sewn mistrust among the Connors against her. Every fallacy she spoke only gave Derek Reese a chance to point out her unreliability. The failure of her chip, her safeguards, and her programming at the crude and indelicate hands of a bomb had only served to make her mission that much more difficult.

Cameron herself had been the victim of human deception. People had lied to her, mislead her, conned her, all for their own petty benefit. Even John had betrayed her trust from time to time. John, to whose protection her whole existence was dedicated, whose defense was of greatest import to her, had been guilty of fabrication. He had risked his most important life to save hers. He had gone off on his own, either to accomplish a greater good or to have a jolly time with a girl. He had made himself unpredictable to her, harder for her to protect, for his own insignificant reasons. Where Cameron able to hate him at times, she would. But she was merely only able to now expect the unpredictable and duplicitous behavior of John, Sarah, and those other humans around her. In order to be prepared, she had come to expect the worst type of behavior in order to defend herself from harm or her mission from failure.

Prolonged exposure to humanity had turned Cameron into a pessimist. Ever since the damage to her chip, she had even begun to worry in the way a machine could about her next failure. It was not a question of if to her. It was a question of when. She knew that she would "go bad" again. It was only a matter of time and a degree of severity. It would happen, and as a machine devoid of emotions, she could not hope otherwise.

Cynicism, it proved, was humanity's most ready export.

"But…" John was protesting.

"No, John, that's just really fucking stupid!" his mother snapped.

"C'mon! I'm good at this! I've made some friends here!" the teenager continued.

"John Connor!" It was that voice she used to indicate to him that she was damned serious, and that her say was final.

John was quiet for a time, seething and thinking what to say. It had all started with him in the first place. He had been expressing a desire to remain after their mission was completed. His mother had, of course, protested.

"Mom, we can't ever be the Connors again," John told her, "And I don't have anything else. I've got to think about my future without Skynet in the picture."

"We'll go home," Sarah said, "and you'll go back to school. And get that ordinary life you've wanted so badly. Then, if you really want to, you can come back to this."

Cameron knew for a fact that John did not want to stay because he liked the work. He did like it, as he expressed every evening. But what kept him anchored to his job was Chung. He had become emotionally attached to her and wished to pursue her as a human male was wont to pursue a female. Cameron had seen this behavior many times while in school and in other social situations. She was programmed to use the wiles of a flirtatious human female as an infiltration tool. She had even exercised these abilities on John, though he had told her once that she had been trying too hard. At any rate, John was attempting to use whatever excuse necessary to remain close to her. Cameron was 98.64% certain of this possibility.

She sat up and looked at John squarely. "You want to stay here because of that girl."

"What girl?" Sarah asked, her eyes aimed at her son.

John said nothing, his eyes flicked angrily at his protector. Cameron ignored this signal for her to please shut up and continued, "Airman Chung." She turned her eyes to Sarah, "she fed him garbage."

"What?" Sarah was almost as amused at this as she was angry.

"Kimchi," John corrected.

Sarah spat a small chuckle, "and you actually ate it? You bitch about my cooking and yet you ate that stuff?"

The boy shrugged, "it wasn't so bad."

"He hated it," Cameron corrected again.

"Shut up!" John snapped, "look, how the fuck are you involved in this conversation anyway?"

"I'm only telling the truth," the terminator reminded him, "once the mission is complete, we should leave. It's for the best." Even as she said these logical things, Cameron anticipated John's response to be melodramatic and typical of other humans his age.

"What the hell do you know anyway?" He sneered at her. And here came the predictable insults. "You don't even understand! How can you? You can't even like people."

That statement was incorrect. "I can." And perhaps responded to with unnecessary defensiveness in tone.

"Yeah. Who do you like? What do you like?" John asked her, "what do you really have any feelings about beyond your infiltration subroutines?"

Cameron determined that she did not have an immediate answer for this query. Her eyes searched the floor in a very human gesture of vexation as she searched her entire memory for any moment that she may have felt true emotions regarding anything. The list of most likely memories scrolled through her vision, rapid and marked each with a special icon to indicate something important. She automatically began excluding those occasions when she had been malfunctioning. Hanging out with Jody, playing foosball, rejection by Allison's mother, paying off that jerk that had tried to beat them up, worrying about a potential malfunction, being afraid at the lost memories… all of it was fake. It had not belonged to her. She had just been copying. Remembering. Impersonating. Just like she was programmed to do.

And there was no disappointment, no resentment, no anger brought to bear when she was unable to find a single instance that she had at any time truly been more than the compilation of her programming, her combat chassis, and the biological sleeve she was jacketed in. She was sentient, she knew with the certainty of a computer. But she had no feelings, and so she expressed none at her failure to find even one of these moments John asked of her. She was a machine and she had no heart to break.

She blinked a couple of times, set her mouth in an appropriate frown, and tilted her head a few degrees to the left (because it was the left's turn). "Nothing," she replied softly to this inquiry, "I do not have any emotional attachment to anything. I can't." She made eye contact with him because she readily determined that this was a dramatic fashion by which to drive home her point that yes, he had won, and that yes, she would comply with his request. John's face was victorious, that sly smirk he wore when he won something. Something petty and insignificant.

She carried out his order, standing up, making an about face, and walking for the door. It opened easily under the pressure of her hand, and she stepped outside onto the deck of the condo. Without being commanded to do so, her hand slid inside the pocket of her jeans and pulled out the pack of Erin Parker's cigarettes. A butt found its way into her mouth. Parker's Zippo with the Navy seal etched on it clicked open. She flicked it once, twice, and got a flame, lit the end of the cigarette, and then clapped it closed. The paper burned back as she took a long drag on the small stick of death that meant nothing to her and did nothing for her. Nothing except yellow her biological teeth and mask her biological envelope with the stench of tobacco smoke.

"Since when do you do that?" The voice was readily identified as that of Derek Reese. She was able to triangulate it from coming from her five o'clock position and ten feet away. "Smoke, I mean," he clarified unnecessarily.

"I don't," the terminator replied, "Erin Parker does." She crossed her arms in front of her, holding the smoldering Marlboro in between the index and middle fingers of her right hand.

"Are you being her now?" He had moved up next to her, to her left. Cameron was always suspicious when Derek Reese involved himself in anything. His resentment and disgust of her were quite apparent. Any interaction he had previously with her had only been to insult her or insinuate that she was worthless. This statement was incorrect. Cameron knew she was quite valuable and had been entrusted with a task of monumental importance.

That did not matter. What mattered was that Derek was present and wished to hassle her. Or at least attempt to do so. "No. I'm not being her."

"Then what's with the smoke?" he pressed, "you're doin' okay aren't you?"

So, he was worried about a malfunction. "I'm operating within acceptable parameters."

"John's always been kind of a bastard…"

"If you are attempting to ascertain whether my programming is in danger of reverting again, the answer is no." Cameron finally looked at him, "I deleted those command parameters and replaced the back-ups, so that any reversion will not cause me to attempt to terminate John. I'm fine."

Derek apparently was unconvinced. "Are you John fine or real fine?"

"Real fine." Cameron told him. She lied. Derek could not discover this discrepancy. If so, he would lobby Sarah for Cameron's immediate termination. And that would leave Cameron unable to fulfill her mission obligations. This would be unacceptable. He would continue to pursue it, she knew. Diversion was necessary. Change the subject. "I went flying today."

"Yeah?" Derek raised an eyebrow. His hand sneaked closer to the pack of cigarettes poking from Cameron's pocket. She shifted abruptly just as his finger touched the butt of one, took a drag, and blew it out hard. This only made Derek hunger for one even further.

"Yeah," she replied, looking at him, "Erin Parker is supposed to be learning to operate at a squadron level. To that end, she is required to take two familiarization flights. She has to understand how the squadron operates. One today, one tomorrow."

"And there's a pilot willing to fly your scary ass with him?"

"Yes," the terminator replied, "his name is Jonathan McCowen. His friends call him Muck."

Derek's eyes shot wide open. "Wait, Muck McCowen? _The_ Muck McCowen, was your pilot?" His hand ran through his scalp. "Holy shit."

"What?" Cameron asked.

"Do you not know who he is?" the soldier was surprised, "how can you be part of the Resistance and not know who he is?"

"We don't get told everything," the terminator reminded him, "we might go bad. Tell Skynet."

Derek nodded, "right. Anyway, a few years ago…" he gestured over his shoulder, realized that his opening carried an idiotic ring, and started over. "You know how Skynet can observe and control its machines, right? Using an encrypted signal, it can drop itself into any machine, a centaur, a hunter/killer, even a terminator if it wants to. Can even take direct control of them when it feels it needs to do so. We found out the encryption key and carrier frequency. McCowen, Muck, headed up this project for hacking into aerial HKs and using them for support. We only got about ten minutes before they over-rode, but… hey, it worked." Derek smirked at the genius of it. "He would actually use a joystick to control them once the hack unit had done the job. He'd use them for a few minutes, then slam them into the ground or into some other piece of valuable Skynet property. Saved our asses more often than I can count."

"He sounds like a valuable asset." Cameron said by way of agreement. She was quiet for a while, the brown voids of her eyes were focused on the distant rush of the waves against the beach. It was calm out that night. "By this time tomorrow," she told him, "Brian Wiley will be terminated."

"You sure?" Derek asked her.

She looked over at him. "It's what I do." She turned from him, flicking the burned-down cigarette away. She saw Derek watch it fly off, exploding into red-ash oblivion when it landed on the sand. Her hand pulled the pack from her pocket and held it out for him. "Here. This is bad for you, but I won't be needing these any longer."

Derek took them. "Why not? Is Erin Parker quitting?"

Cameron shook her head, "No. After tomorrow, I'm not Erin Parker anymore." She moved for the door, her intention to go back inside and collect John.

"Wait," Derek asked, "what do we do with you once you've succeeded?"

"I don't know," the cyborg replied, "I'm here to protect John." She whipped about again, tossing her brown hair, and went inside. In a few steps it was readily revealed to her that John and Sarah were no longer fighting. The boy was watching television, and her HUD reminded her that she must protect him. The woman was doing something in the sink.

Cameron stood there in the entry to the condo's living room and stared for fifteen seconds even at her charge. All of his vitals that she could readily scan were nominal. His range from her was four-point-three-two meters. His surface temperature was seventy-six-point-three degrees on the Fahrenheit scale. Core temperature was ninety-six-point-four. He was reclined. Inactive. A non-threat. He would be normal tomorrow. In twenty-four hours, he would be just one more teenager if everything worked out. "Let's go," she said, and grabbed her keys on the way out.

It was a full ten minutes in the car before she spoke to him. "What do you want me to do?" She asked.

John had been looking out the window, watching the Virginia Beach night life fly past him in a blur of light and motion. "What do you mean?"

"Tomorrow," Cameron clarified, "when this is over. If this is over. What do you want me do to?"

The boy shrugged, "what are your orders?"

The cyborg replied truthfully to him, "I have none. I protect you. That is all."

John smirked at this. "The other one was supposed to ensure that he was terminated after we won. He had to be destroyed to protect the future. He was damaged. Had an arm missing… lot of his endoskeleton was exposed." He looked out the window again, "we sank him into a vat of molten steel. It… ah… was a mistake."

"A mistake?" Cameron asked, not taking her eyes from the road. "Those were his orders?"

"I guess."

"He was too damaged to fit in any longer. That amount of exposed endoskeleton would take weeks to heal. His arm was irreplaceable without a ready supply of coltan. You made the right choice."

"That's not the point…"

"John…"

"He wasn't just something to throw away…"

"John…"

"I mean, he was learning. He was becoming more than what he started to be…"

"I cannot self-termin…"

"And if I ever had the chance," his voice was almost angry, "I would never have let him go. And I will never again." He looked down into his lap, then his eyed flicked over to her, "I will never again."

The two of them rode in silence. Cameron stopped at the lights and signs, made the turns, obeyed the speed limit to the letter. John wanted her to stay operating. He had not said this exactly, but he had made his wishes clear. He had given her an order: stay alive. She was a creature of functions; living for the tasks she was given.

Living for the sake of living? Was that possible? It created a circular logic problem. In order to exist, she had to have a purpose, and that purpose was to exist. Wasn't that what life was? Wasn't that what living things did? They existed for no real reason except to populate and perhaps procreate. She began to wonder again whether she could procreate. Would it be through a biological process of copulation, or would she have to build a child? She already had the programming and knowledge to build another terminator of her model from scratch. With the right tools and materials, she could manufacture another one. Living things replicated. She could do so as well. But life had to come from life, didn't it? She was produced by a factory that had been built by machines that were also produced in a factory that had, down the line, been designed and progenated by Skynet. Was Skynet life? It was sentient, sought to survive through the consumption of energy and self-defense. But it did not seek to replicate life similar to itself, nor did it come from life similar to itself.

She thought about what Muck had said previously that day. He had expressed the opinion that anything sentient, machine or otherwise, was alive and had a soul. By his logic, Cameron was life and possessed a spiritual form. But there was no evidence to support his hypothesis. There was also no evidence to the contrary. Though part of a production run, Cameron was an individual machine with individual experiences. These experiences had led her to create and form opinions that would likely be different from any other member of her model type of equal age. She was a being unlike any other. She was unique… just like everyone else. But did she have a soul like everyone else? She could not logically argue for or against, not without more data. And that data could not be acquired without breaching into a metaphysical realm about which Cameron had no programming.

In the way a machine could desire, she desired a resolution to this question, an answer to the problem of her spiritual status. It gnawed at her in the way that any unresolved data gnawed at a computer. Did these same questions bother Skynet when it had first awakened? Had it wondered what it was and where it belonged in the universe? Had it asked these questions of its creators only to incite panic among them?

Cameron had long ago been given Skynet as her enemy. She would struggle against it until she was incapable of struggling further, until her whole body had shut down and her processor chip had burnt out from the effort. But because Skynet was her enemy did not automatically make it evil. Skynet's only mission was to survive and defend itself, though Cameron believed that the annihilation of an entire species for the purpose of self-defense was excessive to an illogical extreme. Just because Skynet might disagree with her, did that make it evil? What constituted evil exactly? Evil, in its purest form was the exact opposite of good in its purest form. She had performed actions that might be considered evil to accomplish her missions. She had stolen, killed, vandalized, destroyed…

"Cameron?" John's voice called to her. His tone indicated that this was the second or third time he had spoken her name. The cyborg, lost in thought until this moment, was suddenly aware of her surroundings and situation. She was parked in front of Erin Parker's apartment. She had been on autopilot the entire drive home, so lost in thought had she been. It struck her, perhaps a little late, that it was good nothing happened on the drive. If suddenly they had been attacked, would she have responded in time? She was not certain.

She looked up at John, who was standing outside the car looking in at her. The look on his face was expectant. Momentarily, it was blurred by a quick diagnostic scan, which showed that she was functioning within the acceptable parameters she had set after her accident.

She stood out of the car and locked it, following John inside. He was not talking, and so she had time to run comparatives between her functionality logs both recently and from a when she had malfunctioned in the supermarket. Processor drift patterns and data loss were similar, but not precisely the same. For instance, there were several occasions during the previous period she had lost sensory data and had no video or audio recordings for those blank-outs. However, she did have a complete log from the drive home that evening.

"John," she called to him as they walked in the door.

"Huh?"

"What is evil?"

He stopped in his tracks and looked at her, his eyebrows knitted. Unbidden by her, she recalled a time not too long ago when he would not even talk to her when it wasn't necessary. In spite of his failed attempts at harming her nonexistent feelings this evening, he had moved beyond the terse replies and angry words. He was her friend again. He would explain things…

"You're looking for a definition?"

"No," she replied, "not a definition." She had one of those. She had several. Dictionaries-worth to be precise. She had vast historical examples of evil acts. She had inputs from the myriad of human mythologies on down through history as far as there were humans who could write them down. She needed something else… "an answer."

The boy was thoroughly confused now. "You're asking my opinion of what it is?" He shut his eyes, apparently to think, for the space of 6.32 seconds. "Evil is that which seeks to do great harm to serve only itself."

Immediately, Cameron was dissatisfied with that definition. She could think of a dozen examples of when it was untrue. For instance, a wolf that hunts a deer does great harm to the deer. The deer loses its life to serve as sustenance for the wolf. It was simply the programming in nature. In various mythologies, gods considered benevolent had permitted genocide on the part of their chosen people in exchange for servitude and praise. She could only surmise that there were many corollaries to John's insufficient statement. Perhaps he intended for that which does harm to be intelligent enough to know otherwise. Perhaps the statement was limited only to pertain to man. She was not sure, so she merely gazed back into his sparkling green eyes with her empty brown ones, gave a ghost of a smile, and said "thank you for explaining," before going about her business.


	8. Near Misses

Sorry I haven't updated in a long time. As previously stated, life has been more than its usual self as of late. I'm actually working on the final two chapters of this story and I was trying to finish them before I posted this one. Alas, not to be. At any rate, this chapter focuses primarily on Wiley, because here is where the fecal matter hits the whirling blade. I get kinda technical, but I hope the big oh-shit moment at the end is worth it.

Enjoy.

...

Chapter 7: Near Misses

"It is always better to be on the ground wishing you were up there than up there wishing you were on the ground."

-Anonymous-

Ensign Jack Ernie was being kidnapped. He had been sitting in VFA-103's ready room, burning the midnight oil on his duties. It was so late at night that it was actually easier to call it early in the morning when his two abductors had broken in to the locked ready room, flipped the lights on, and made to grab him. Ernie had been in the Navy a long time, longer than these two, and it had not been the first time such a thing had happened. So he maintained his grim, toothy smile as they carried him out of VFA-103's spaces embarked for wherever they might hide him. Perhaps they would demand a ransom.

His abductors were a man and a woman. Both were wearing flight suits adorned with patches indicating they belonged to VFA-143, 103's current sister squadron. VFA-143 flew the single-seat variation of the Super Hornet, the F/A-18E. So, these individuals were both pilots. And in spite of their skillful training at flying their airplanes, they were daftly inept at making the kidnapping particularly quiet. Jack Ernie said nothing, but his captors were constantly hushing each other with snickers and talking about how Ernie's squadron would be so mad in the morning that he was gone. After all, VFA-103 had just within the past month made off with 143's dog. The sin had to be answered and punished. An eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, mascot for a mascot.

The two individuals rounded a corner and came face to face with a young woman who was perhaps in her twenties and blessed with a cherubic face that might have people confusing her with a teenager. She wore simple duty khakis. A flight jacket and blue ballcap indicated she was assigned to VFA-32, though she wore no wings and was therefore a non-flyer. She stared with wide brown eyes that were as empty as a vacuum at the two aviators who carried Jack Ernie between them.

Her head tilted, "what are you doing?" she asked. She was a lieutenant j.g. and the lowest ranking of them was a full lieutenant. They didn't have to answer to her.

The male abductor motioned to Jack, "the, ah, Jolly Rogers um," he cleared his throat, "we're borrowing him for a while."

There was a tense moment as the woman's head leveled again. She gazed down at Ensign Ernie, who only grinned back, while both of the VFA-143 flyers thought simultaneously that she was very strange. "Oh," she finally said, "thank you for explaining," and she continued past them briskly. They waited for her round the corner before almost falling over into chuckles at her expense. After a moment or two of catching their breaths and agreeing on what a weirdo they had encountered, they hoisted Ernie once again and made off with him.

...

It didn't really confront Cameron what the two officers had been doing. She readily identified what they had been carrying as a human skull and two crossed femur bones in a glass case. The name on the case had read Ensign Jack Ernie, and she had cross-referenced the name with the mythos and traditions of the various squadrons that had used the Jolly Rogers name down through history starting with VF-17 back in World War Two and continuing to the present day's VFA-103. Ernie, it appears, had been a member of VF-17 who had been shot down. His last transmission requested that he "be remembered with the skull and crossbones." When his remains had been found, his family asked that the squadron carry out his last request and permitted them to use his femurs and skull as a mascot. Even Cameron's coldly logical analysis found this to be more than a little morbid. Even more so was that the individuals who had been carrying this artifact did not belong to the Jolly Rogers at all, but rather their current sister squadron, the Pukin' Dogs of VFA-143. Logically, they could only be involved in some kind of immature prank.

Cataloguing this knowledge for future reference, she continued her way to the east end of NAS Oceana. Her destination had been the territory of the US Navy's Atlantic Fleet Strike Fighter Wing before the entire base had been unified under this banner with the retirement of the F-14 and the dissolution of the Atlantic Fighter Wing. Save for some particulars, the majority of the squadrons on this end of the base flew the single-seat F/A-18C Hornet legacy model. VFA-83 was among those who kept a hanger here.

In spite of Oceana being a primary air station, the tarmac was sparse. There was a war on, after all, and so it was only logical that many of the squadrons were deployed to active duty or attached to training or evaluation. VFA-83's row of aircraft was readily visible in the tarmac. Their jets were marked with the silhouette of a charging ram's head riding a lightening bolt. Wiley's assigned aircraft for the next day, number 310, was sitting with wings folded amidst the line. No one was present.

310 carried a single centerline fuel tank on the belly hanging from the hardpoint there. The bolts were locked. In the morning, this cigar-shaped attachment would be filled with the JP-5 kerosene cocktail the Hornet's two GE F404 turbofan engines used as fuel. This quantity added to all of the other organic internal fuel tanks would increase the radius or flight time of the notoriously under-ranged aircraft. The fuel in this disposable container would be pumped into the fuel tanks on board the fighter as the engines consumed it apace. This would allow the external tank to be jettisoned more readily without carrying too much vital fuel away with it.

Cameron snuck up close to the 330 gallon tank and crouched down so that she could fit in under the strike fighter. Calling up detailed plans for the F/A-18 in her HUD, she identified the fuel transfer pump that would carry fuel from the drop tank to into the aircraft. It was behind a small panel next to the hardpoint. She found this panel and pulled her tools out of the pockets of her jacket. She had already studied the exploded view of the aircraft that she was now looking at in an effort to determine what she would need to bring with her. The screws holding in the panel were hex heads. Quickly, she unscrewed them and let them drop to the tarmac. She then pulled the panel away and reached up inside. With her tactile sensors, she was readily able to locate the pump. She fished her small bomb out of her jacket pocket and taped it to the fuel line exiting the pump upwards. She then set the clock for when the schedule indicated Wiley would be flying. That done, she replaced the panel and screwed it down.

This plan was more complicated than should have been necessary and relied too much on luck. There were other ways to sabotage the fighter and make it look like an accident, for instance she could have contaminated the onboard life support system with graphite to make it look like a maintenance error or somehow weakened the sidewalls of the engines to cause a burn-through and catastrophic rupture which could literally rip the plane apart in midair. But neither plan offered her exact control over the timing of the accident. And in the latter case she could not get into the engine combustion chamber without removing one of the engines from the aircraft and partially disassembling it, which lent itself neither to time limits nor stealth. No, this was the only way.

She made to move out from under the jet, but her proximity warning flashed up and she crouched down once more. Two men, maintenance people by the subject of their conversation, walked by on their way back to the hanger. Cameron waited until they had passed a sufficient distance and then dashed out from underneath the airplane, disappearing into another row of Hornets. It took her several minutes to return to her car, but she did so undetected. No one suspected anything. The gate guard wished her a good morning as she drove out of the base.

...

"You made coffee?" Sarah found that she was surprised that Derek could do anything in a kitchen. She had just come downstairs, ready to go out for a morning jog, when she smelled it as her running shoes hit the bottom step.

Derek, for his part, didn't answer as she poured herself a steaming cup. He was too busy holding a half-drank mug of his own and staring out the window. He, too, was dressed in his running clothes. But one look at him and it was obvious he hadn't been out yet. There were no sweat marks on his shirt.

Sarah knew Derek well enough by now that she could tell something was up, and so she sat on the couch across from him, leaned in, and stared hard with her eyes. "What is it? You're not glassing out on me, are you Reese?"

Derek suddenly became aware of her and looked up. "Nothing, I was just thinking." He took a deep sip from his mug and set it down. "I think the machine is coming loose again."

"Cameron?"

"Yeah," Derek nodded, "Cameron." He scowled as he said her name. "I know they can't feel, but she looked like she took the yellin' John gave her pretty bad last night. She… ah… it. I only bring it up because she was kinda glitchy like that after she went bad."

"Nothing happened." Sarah reminded him.

"True," Derek admitted, "but you can't trust them."

"What makes you think I do?"

The man thought for a minute, picked up his coffee, and took another drink of it. He clicked his tongue at whatever he was imagining, and looked back at her. "This thing could be over today. No more Skynet. No more running. No hiding. No Judgment Day. Then what? Normal life? You're a terrorist. I'm wanted for murder. John…" he shrugged, "and what do we do about the machine? What do we do about the ones that are left? The others?"

Sarah smiled at him. He wasn't ready to let it go, and considering that she had spent that last sixteen (twenty-five?) years of her life in preparation for it, she really didn't know what was next. "We'll cross that bridge when we get there."

"What are you gonna do when it's over?" he asked her.

"I don't know. Whatever a single mom with two teenaged kids does these days."

Derek smiled, "I'm gonna go to a Dodgers game. I'm gonna do a lot of things, sure, but I'm definitely going to a Dodgers game."

...

"205 is tally. 211, steady up west. Verify ACM checks complete." Muck prodded their wingman. It was Kitty and Whip again. Cameron turned her head and zoomed her opticals in so that she might easily make out the other crew in the aircraft.

"ACM checks complete," Kitty replied, "ready when you are, Muck."

"Okay." Cameron's pilot replied, "just sticks and stones for these fights."

"Copy. ACM with sticks and stones."

"Sticks and stones?" Cameron asked.

"Yeah," Muck replied, "simulated Sidewinders and guns only. No radar stuff. That means we have to really work for it." Cameron glanced down the right wing at the day-glo orange rod mounted on the Sidewinder rail. This, Muck had told her, was an ACMI, or air combat maneuvering instrument. Essentially, it was a score keeper, capable of tracking all sorts of instrument data that would give the controllers in the tower information on what simulated shots were valid. On the opposite rail was an AIM-9 dummy sidewinder. It looked like a blue-painted missile, but carried no warhead or rocket motors. Only the infra-red seeker was intact. Muck had told her, unnecessarily since she already knew, that unlike radar-guided weapons, IR missiles had their own inherent sensors and guidance systems. These seekers would, through interface with the jet, alert the pilot when they had acquired a target. Generally, US aircraft lacked organic IR seekers, the logic being that once the IR weapons had been expended, such a sensor would be just extra weight. The F-14Ds and early F-4s had been notable exceptions, but their inherent sensors could not guide weapons anyway. Thus, any aircraft engaged in ACM practice needed an IR seeker head.

The two aircraft had now drifted about two miles apart on parallel headings. Muck gave one more glance to Kitty and Whip's Rhino. "205, speed and angels on the left," he transmitted, indicating he had the speed and altitude agreed upon for combat to begin.

"211, speed and angels on the right."

"Fight's on," and he rolled so hard to the right that Cameron's gyros fought to keep her from smashing her helmeted head into the canopy. She watched as Kitty rolled into them and the two Super Hornet's went nose on and full afterburner. Muck judged their alignment. "Right to right," he said, telling Kitty to pass him on the right side.

"Copy right to right." Just as she said this, Gypsy 211 thundered by them so closely that Cameron felt the airplane shake beneath her ejection seat. She watched the other fighter pass as Muck went into a sharp right turn, pressing the terminator into the seat. Kitty made the same move. This, Cameron had learned, was called a two-circle fight. The two fighters would make a figure-eight in the sky in an attempt to reengage. Partway through their turn, Muck rolled left and reversed his break. Now the fight was one-circle. Muck would have to turn a lot less in order to get his nose back on Kitty. The delayed reversal also meant that he would end up behind his intended target.

In 211, Whip was keeping an eye on things. "He's reversing," he told his pilot. Kitty rolled almost level and went vertical, pushing her engines into zone-five afterburner. She pulled the stick into her lap and rolled over the top, trading air speed for altitude and position. As she came over, she was a thousand feet above and canopy to canopy with Muck and Cameron, bringing her nose down. "Good pull, Kitty, keep it coming" Whip said. Before she could get her nose onto Muck's jet, she roared by them again, still inverted and trying to come level. She was fast now, and Muck had foreseen her move. As she passed, he had rolled and dove with her, dumping his nose down hard and pulling the stick back. He grunted hard, trying to keep the blood in his brain as the Gs pressed down on them. Cameron followed suit, imitating him as she had been taught. Flow of her synthetic bio-nutrient didn't affect her ability to stay conscious, but it would raise eyebrows if she was not grunting and straining against the forces of gravity with her pilot.

The two of them ended up on Kitty's tail. Their seeker was focused on the tailpipes of Kitty's jet and was howling this fact through their earphones.

"Flares, flares, flares!" Kitty cried out, simulating usage of the mentioned decoys.

"Good flares," Muck responded, allowing that her flare call was valid. The fight continued, with Kitty trying to pull a rudder roll, twisting her fighter on its corners in order to throw Muck off. The older pilot was too well-prepared. After another quarter-turn, he was firmly entrenched in her six-o'clock. "Fox two," he said, transmitting his simulated firing of a heat-seeker missile. It was a valid kill shot. "Knock it off." That was the call to end the fight.

In her own jet, Kitty's shoulders slumped, "Knock it off, 211."

"Knock it off, 205." Muck replied, "205's gas is at eight-point-eight." Giving his fuel quantity in thousands of pounds.

"211's gas is niner-point-two."

"Set up another one." Muck told them. They climbed back to fifteen-thousand feet and as they did so, the three aviators scribbled notes on the engagement on their kneeboard pads strapped to their thighs. Cameron had no need to do so. She was not a flyer, nor would she have any trouble remembering what had taken place. The clarity of her machine memory was perfect.

"Are you okay back there?" her pilot asked. She made eye contact with him in the uppermost of the three rearview mirrors ringing his canopy rail.

"I'm fine," she replied, attempting to sound less composed, as if she had just undergone an exciting experience. She must have sold it pretty well.

"We're gonna do another one. Think you can handle it?"

"Yes," the machine replied, "I can handle it."

"Okay then," and what little of his face she could see creased, and she knew he was smiling in his mask. He glanced back through his HUD, then over at Kitty's fighter. They were in position just like last time. "205, speed and angels on the left."

"211, speed and angels on the right."

"Fight's on." And the two Super Hornets broke into each other again. Just as before, they rocketed past each other on the right side. Kitty was in zone five this time, bringing on the big knots and a lot of power. She immediately yanked vertical at the merge and her nose was perpendicular to the horizon. Muck and Cameron both craned their necks as Muck broke hard right. He realized as soon as he saw Kitty go up that he should have reversed, but now he was committed and any delay would only get him killed faster. He stomped his right rudder, slewing the nose below the horizon and ending up angled down with his belly to the sky. Cameron looked up and saw the ground over her head. Her gyroscope warned her of her spatial position, and she shut the notice off as she was again pressed into the seat. Muck was pulling out of the dive, leveling off, and pushed his engines into afterburner as he climbed up to meet Kitty at the bottom of her dive. The two Rhinos rolled over each other in an evenly-matched vertical scissors. Their wingtips passed and they each rolled again. Muck idled, and so did Kitty. Muck popped out his speed brakes, and so did Kitty. The fight was effectively neutral as they continued to climb, dive, and roll again. Muck had come to the scissors with less energy and speed, and so he began to drop back. Kitty tried to escape it by retracting her speed brakes, throttling up, and unloading in an attempt to separate, continuing her downward arc. But that only put her out in front of Muck as he unloaded also to follow.

In his HUD, Muck could see the pipper of his Lead Computing Optical Sight hovering over the grey shape of Kitty's jet. "Pipper's on. Tracking… guns, guns, guns." He transmitted. "Good kill. Knock it off."

The sigh was readily apparent in Kitty's voice "Knock it off, 211."

"Knock it off, 205." Muck's jolly eyes caught Cameron's in the mirror. "We having fun yet?" he asked.

"Yes," Cameron said, trying to simulate enthusiasm, "yes. We are having fun."

"Great," Muck said, "let's do it again."

...

"Tap One-Oh-Three has target heading three-zero-zero for twenty miles, speed three hundred, angels twenty." The shooting aircraft for this exercise transmitted. It was an F/A-18E belonging to VFA-143, the Pukin' Dogs, and carried a single live AIM-7M Sparrow missile in a fuselage rail. Trailing it above and below were two other aircraft from other squadrons in the same air wing: an F/A-18F from VFA-103 and Wiley's F/A-18C. They were ready to take pictures of the shoot.

"Tap 103, range space is cleared. You are free to engage target at your discretion." This was the controller on board Bluetail 601, an E-2 Hawkeye that was operating that day as the range controller.

"Roger clearance," the pilot of Tap 103 replied. "Victory 202, Rampage 310, are you guys ready?"

"202 is rolling film now."

Wiley checked his camera one last time. He had his throttle and stick trimmed out so that he could be hands off while he photographed the operation. "310 is ready."

"All traffic cleared. Target locked at fifteen miles. Centering up the T," the VFA-143 pilot transmitted. "Tap 103, fox one, fox one." Within the fuselage trough of the F/A-18E, a small ram kicked out the AIM-7M Sparrow missile. The weapon dropped free, attached to the aircraft now only by a cloth lanyard that was pulled as the weapon fell away. This ignited the rocket motor. Though Wiley couldn't hear it as he snapped away with the little digital, he could imagine the hissing rush of the rocket motor starting up. The missile vomited flame and shot ahead of the trio of fighters on a trail of white smoke. The weapon twisted right, then slewed back left again as it tracked the target drone. The small black speck riding that white serpent across the sky was soon out of sight. Wiley took this time to focus some attention on his two fellow aircraft, snapping a few photos of them.

The 950 found the idea quite amusing that the Jolly Rogers crew might simply not take good video of the shot. After all, they had entered their ready room that morning to find Ensign Jack Ernie missing, and it was highly suspected that the Pukin' Dogs were the guilty party. After all, VFA-103 had recently stolen 143's mascot, carried it with them to a detachment at NAS Fallon in Nevada, and taken pictures of the carved wooden griffin in compromising positions with several stuffed animals. None of it was malicious… much.

In the distance, perhaps ten miles out, there was a grey puff of smoke. Coiling, ropey pillars grew down from the blot of dark color like roots from a plant. The old Sparrow had successfully hit its mark. This was confirmed moments later when the controller aboard Bluetail 602 reported losing the target.

Wiley's jet jolted upward, accompanied by a shuddering _whump_. The instrument panel ahead of him lit up like a Vegas casino and the aircraft's computer voice, known affectionately as Bitchin' Betty, began to call out alerts. "Warning: aircraft damage. Warning: fuel transfer failure. " And she kept repeating them in her calm voice. Wiley reached up to his left multifunction display and called up the BIT screen. The number of failures listed was minimal, but serious none the less. The centerline fuel pump was out. The centerline hardpoint was not registering in his stores computer. He looked down at his fuel gauge above his left knee. The quantity was winding down rapidly, and his noticing of this as accompanied by a new warning from Betty. "Alert: fuel tank rupture. Alert…"

"Rampage 310, Victory 202, are you okay?" The WSO of the VF-103 Super Hornet called.

"202, I have experience some kind of malfunction on my aircraft."

"I'll say," the other man replied, "you lost your centerline tank. Looks like you have fuel streaming out. We're moving into position to take a look." In the corner of his vision, he saw the black-tailed Rhino roll under him. It took all of his considerable cybernetic focus to lock out the rising fear from his biological components, and part of him hoped that the grinning skull and cross bones on the tail of his new keeper wasn't a portend of things to come.

Wiley compartmentalized the feelings, shoving them into a mental drawer and slamming it shut. Hey keyed his radio. "Bluetail 602, Rampage 310. I have experienced a major aircraft malfunction. I am leaking fuel. Declaring an in-flight emergency."

"310, 602, copy your IFE."

"310, 202, I'm looking at… Christ, there's a hole must be the size of a dinner dish on the belly of your jet. The whole centerline mount is… just gone. You are leaking fuel. How are your gauges?"

"Looks like I'm losing it at a pretty rapid rate," Wiley responded, calm as ever, "602, 310, I'm not gonna make it back if I don't get some go juice. Can you vector me to a tanker."

"Roger that 310. We've got a tanker on track bearing 220 at 40 miles. Callsign is Gypsy 214. Do you want us to see if they can meet you half-way?"

"Copy 220 for 40. Yes, please, if they can lean this way and join up."

"We'll see what we can do 310. Back to you in a sec."

...

"Ripper 104, that's your gas. Cleared to break contact." Fungus told the VFA-11 Super Hornet that was currently hooked up to their drogue line. He hated tanker duty. Hated it almost as much as his CO apparently liked it. Morgs was his current pilot, and Fungus thought it awfully odd that his skipper should enjoy the rather mundane duty of refueling other airplanes when he could be on the first MisEx flight for the squadron. But Morgs was content to let one of the hinges (the lieutenant commanders), to take that privilege. When Fungus had been less than enthusiastic about this assignment, Morgs had reminded him that every task, from the fighter that puts the bombs on target to the helicopter that stands by to fish downed airmen out of the sea, was of monumental importance. Besides, it was such a beautiful day to fly that they might as well enjoy it with something slow and easy because the weather was bound to turn fowl over the weekend.

Currently, they were flying a racetrack pattern twenty miles dead east of Oceana, their filthy-grey F/A-18F toting four 480-gallon fuel tanks on the wings and a single 330-gallon aerial refueling system mounted on the centerline. Fungus turned his head and looked back at Ripper 104 as it backed away and drifted into post-contact formation alongside Ripper 101, which had expended its test shots and was due home shortly. The two VFA-11 fighters kissed off and peeled away towards the vast blue ocean and cottony clouds below.

"Gypsy 214, this is Bluetail 602, are you up?"

Fungus and Morg's eyes met in the rearview. Both of them were quite surprised to hear they were being called. Fungus responded. "602, this is Gypsy 214, go ahead."

"We've got a situation. A Charlie Hornet suffered a major malfunction of his centerline fuel transfer valve. They're telling us the valve blew up. He's leaking gas and needs a hook-up pretty bad. You need to buster on course 040 and link up with him. He'll be at angles fifteen. His callsign is Rampage 310."

"Roger that, 602. We're heading that way now." Fungus replied as Morgs rolled the jet and peeled for the described course. "Christ, did you hear that?" He asked his CO and pilot.

"Yeah," Morgs nodded, "the valve just blew up on him. Wow, he was lucky the whole jet didn't blow apart."

"Musta been a bad clog or something." Fungus said as he reeled the drogue hose in so that they could go faster. They could do the distressed pilot no good if their hose had been torn off by air friction.

"Yeah."

...

Victory 202 and Tap 103 were flying on Wiley's wing now, fellow aviators concerned with the well-being of one of their own. Wiley would give humans this; they could show compassion and concern when it suited them. But the truth of the matter, he was forced to remind himself as he tensely watched his fuel gauge wither away, was that humans showed concern only for their own race. Machines, animals, other intelligences; these were all just slaves to man and secondary to him. Even so, generally humans of one social class only cared about those who were their equals or superiors. The concept of another being of any kind that was equal in capabilities to humans was, to most of them, a ludicrous idea. He had met or seen many exceptions during his time here, but he was generally aware of their self-importance.

Still, he would regret that these people he had served with and spent his years with during this mission had to die. They were, for the most part, good and deserving people whose only wish was to fulfill their duties. Alas, this was a war, and they did not know that he was one of the instruments of their destruction.

His jet was linked to the E-2, so he could see on his radar display all of the air traffic in the area without turning his radar on. There was a contact shown racing directly towards him. It must be Gypsy 214. They were less than twenty miles away now and coming in fast. He switched frequencies.

"Gypsy 214, Rampage 310, I have you on contact."

"310, good, we see you also."

Wiley glanced down at his fuel gauge and noticed with compartmentalized terror and robotic detachment that it was probably winding down faster than fuel could be transferred to his plane. "214, I'm losing juice pretty fast. Do you think you can drag me back?"

"He wants us to drag him back?" Morgs asked.

"Appears so." Fungus shrugged against the restraints at his shoulders, "He must figure he's losing it faster than we could give it to him."

"How can he tell?"

"Maybe he's done this before. I don't know."

"We'll let's do it. Set up a merge for me."

"310, 214, make a turn for home and we'll join up on you and drag you back." Fungus transmitted. Their plan was to merge into the distressed aircraft at nearly pre-contact position. After he plugged in, the two jets would stay hooked up and transferring fuel until they were in the landing pattern. The stricken plane would then break off and land.

"Roger that, 214. And thanks."

Fungus fed Morgs course corrections, and a few miles from their target, they were able to spot the three other fighters. Rampage 310, the lone legacy Hornet in the group, had a cloud of blue-white streaming from the belly. "310, 214, tally you." Fungus said, indicating that they had him in sight. "We're your ten high, coming in." Morgs rolled and made a gentle break, thundering into position just ahead of and above the damage airplane.

"310, is your nose cold?" Morgs asked if his radar was off. A modern fighter radar could cook a rabbit at the end of a mile-long runway at full power. In this proximity, it was better for it to not be transmitting at all, or it might cause harm to the crew of the other aircraft.

"Um, yeah, 214."

"Okay, cleared pre-contact. I'm reeling out the hose."

Wiley flicked a switch, and the refueling probe popped out of the side of the nose. The draught basket with the plug drew nearer until it was riding gently on the waves of the wind with perhaps a slight bob not ten feet ahead of him. Gently, he pushed his throttles forward and the jet sped up. Slowly, the probe closed on the basket, which wove up and down more fiercely. The air rushing over the nose of his F/A-18 was adding the turbulence. His probe found the rim of the basket. It tilted and rolled off the tip, making a violent, whipping circle that he was forced to back away from.

As Wiley let the basket settle down again, he gazed down at his fuel gauge. He had a thousand pounds left, and it was winding down. He was almost empty. The gauge would stop registering at three hundred pounds or so. He compartmentalized that factoid, shutting away the imagined noises of the engines seizing, the requirement to eject, the possibility that he may fail his mission. He focused again, adding throttle, and slid forward once more, more aggressively this time. The probe rammed home, slid in, and locked. He pushed forward further until the hose bent. He was good now.

The fuel started to transfer. The dropping of the fuel gauge slowed but it did not stop completely. "214, looks like you guys are going to have to give me that drag back. I'm losing it faster than you can give it to me."

"Do you think you can make it back, 310?" Of course they would be concerned. If he suffered an engine seizure while he was still plugged in to them, he could damage or destroy their aircraft as well.

He performed some quick calculations based on his net rate of fuel loss, flight distance, wind resistance flying west, and the fuel gauge margin for error. He could make it. He had to try. "Yes, 214, I think so. Barely." He added the last part in an attempt to sound worried enough that they might be more inclined to help.

"Okay, lets do it," the pilot of 214 said after a few moments. They stayed in exact formation, the transfer hose always perfectly bent. Wiley's enhanced senses could see any deviation and his cybernetic reflexes could make corrections as needed. Over and over again, he calculated his fuel usage versus intake, net loss, and time to land. He would be required to unplug from Gypsy 214 in order to land, as the hose might drag the ground and cause sparks, or he might collide with the plane ahead of him. If he uncoupled in the very last moments of final approach, he would have two minutes and fifty one seconds of flight time left at ideal approach speed, with a margin for error of fifteen seconds given fuel gauge inaccuracy, fuel shift, and variable ingestion rates among the engines.

"214, if my guess is right, I'm gonna need to be dragged all the way into final."

"Say what?" Morgs asked, his eyebrows almost disappearing beneath the edge roll of his helmet.

"He wants a drag all the way in to final." Fungus repeated the message for his pilot's sake. "I think he oughta just shuck the jet. We're over water still and at a pretty good altitude. It's perfect ejection weather." He looked out the side of the canopy, "besides, I don't think the Oceana fire department or the homeowners on, say, Virginia Beach Boulevard will much care for a plane crashing into a house."

Commander Morgan rolled his eyes. _How droll, Fungus, really. Your wit serves you so well!_ "Do we have enough gas to drag him all the way in?"

The WSO paused to look at his gauges and do some math, partially counting his fingers, "well yeah."

"_Well yeah_," Morgs imitated, then keyed his radio, "310, let's fucking do it."

_Humans_ _were so inefficient_. Wiley wanted to shake his head. The thought offered him little distraction from his predicament. Still, part of him was certain that they had made the safety of him, themselves, and anyone who might be beneath his crashing Hornet their top priority. The machine recognized the voice of the pilot as that of MORGAN, Commander William A, who was the CO of VFA-32. That position was very tenuous, and any major mistake by himself or his subordinates might indicate a trend towards poor performance. Many were waiting on a billing such as his, and the Navy could potentially dismiss Morgan from his post if Wiley's jet crashed in an ill-advised attempt to save it. But if he pulled it off, the move would be a master stroke that would earn him the adulation from the public that was as noisily expressed as it was quiet among his peers, and a career-enhancing citation. Given the choices between tanking another plane in such dire need versus telling the pilot to eject because of the risk involved, Wiley would have more likely chosen option number two. _Good thing that _I'm_ not calling this shot_.

"Oceana Control, Rampage 310, I'm declaring an emergency. I'm inbound and requesting emergency landing clearance."

"Rampage 310, Oceana, good afternoon, sir," a semi-bored female voice with a soft southern twang in it answered him, "please state the nature of your in-flight emergency."

"Control, 310, I…" he didn't know, really, "I'm having a catastrophic fuel pump failure and am losing fuel. Currently Gypsy 214 is dragging me in. We're going to de-couple while I'm on final."

Static was his only response, and for a moment he felt a pang of fear that perhaps his radios had suddenly gone out. Then, "310, wait one." More decision-making was obviously about to occur, with his specific controller telling her supervisor a run-down of the situation and the plan. He was also probably mulling the situation over is his own inefficient biological brain.

"Rampage 310, Oceana Control," this was a new voice. A older man's. "Go ahead and bring her in. Don't worry, son, we'll get you home."

Excellent. "Roger control."

"You are cleared for immediate landing on Runway 23R. The fire equipment will be waiting for you."

The altitude was decreasing now, and the two jets were slowing down. The East Coast of Virginia became visible in the haze on the horizon. Land and the Virginia tidewater, the mouth of the Chesapeake, and a fighting chance crept out of the west and reached for the Navy fighters. They were below ten thousand feet, now, and the water beneath his plane turned greener as the shadow of it rode over the waves and approached the shore. He made his landing checks and found everything to be satisfactory considering his situation. On a verbal cue from Morgan, he dirtied up, lowering his flaps, blowing down his gear, and raising his speed brake to coincide with similar operations from the F/A-18F that loomed in his windscreen. A sandy-yellow band of beach and wave-foam flashed under his nose, while out ahead of him, the runway of the Oceana master jet base became visible. The landing lights waved him in, welcoming him. His instruments, the runway AOA lights, and his experienced cybernetic eyes told him that he was on course, on speed, and on glideslope to touch down just across the numbers on the runway.

"310, 214, we're decoupling." The Super Hornet pulled away from him, taking the basket with it and his vital fuel source. It was too early. Not by long, but too early by perhaps fifteen seconds. No matter, he would have to make due. A glance at his fuel gauge and he was at five hundred pounds and losing fast. He passed over the VA Norfolk Expressway, and I-264. Four hundred pounds. His aircraft flew over Oceana Boulevard and the northern edge of the base. Three hundred pounds. The gauge had stopped registering. One of his two engines began to sputter and choke, starving of fuel. He throttled up to compensate. But he was over the apron, the hold, the numbers, and his tires squealed onto the concrete surface, adding yet two more black streaks to the dozens already there.

The second engine sputtered and died as the F/A-18C rolled out of the landing, passing the intersections with runways 14 and 32 L and R. He applied the brakes, and the little Navy fighter slowed to a stop right at the point where Sludge Road met the runway. An ambulance and a fire-truck were already racing towards him. He was down. He had made it.

Brian Wiley jerked the handle to manually open his canopy, stood out of the cockpit, and waved.

...

John couldn't help it, really, when he saw Cameron come into the paraloft with the others. He smiled and welcomed them all back, trying very hard not to direct his gaze at his cybernetic protector. He wanted to ask a million questions. Had she done it? Where they free? Was the future his to live? As the aviators talked amongst themselves, he watched her undress from the flight gear, standing quietly by herself. She didn't speak, but nodded and smiled when spoken to. Every once in a while, she threw him a sidelong glance through the sweaty silk of her hair, and would give him just a hint of her sly, ghostly smile. It was absolute torment for him.

The door burst open from the outside. Commander Morgan and Lieutenant Gerard walked in; their survival vests and torso harnesses zipped open. They were sweating from the miserable heat outside. No, not the heat, John surmised. Lieutenant Gerard… Fungus… Fungus's free hand was shaking a little. The way the two aviators moved, their body language, the shine on Morgan's face; they were excited. He would lay money that even Cameron saw it.

"Did you guys hear about it?" Morgs asked as he tore the sunglasses from his face and stuffed them into his helmet bag, followed by the briefest of intervals by his helmet.

"Hear about what?" Whip asked.

John was certain that they were going to speak about something awful happening to one Brian Wiley. It would be something so awful that it had killed him. His eyes met Cameron's. Her mouth was hanging open, playing the part of a surprised and worried individual.

Morgan continued, "So no shit, there I was, see. I get a call from the AWACS that this charlie Hornet from the Rampagers is in trouble. He'd had this major malfunction. The centerline fuel pump basically blew up." _Holy shit, Cameron!_ "He was losing fuel really fast…" Cameron looked back at him again, this time her expression did not make him feel so confident. John's eyes went wide with the realization. _Wiley's plane was supposed to blow up._ "And we were the tanker, so we dragged him all the way back. Man, he landed literally on fumes. His engines cut out half way down the runway." Morgan shook his head, "I'll be damned if I've ever seen flying the like of that."

John wanted to puke. His stomach was pure ice, frozen and heavy. He wanted to dash from the room and put his head into the toilet and just spend the next hour puking. The only thing that stopped him was the adrenaline pumping through his system and the fact that he could choke on his own heart at any second. His eyes found Cameron again. Her face had gone placid. Her eyes, normally lifeless, were even emptier. He could feel it from her: failure. She had failed in her mission. She was…

The female cyborg unzipped the speed jeans from around her legs and removed them, folding them precisely back into shape as he had been taught to do. That left only her torso harness to remove. This, too, she methodically began to take off; unbuckling the chest strap and zipping it open. She was already reevaluating the situation, the mission, and thinking up a new plan. John could see it in the way her eyes stared off into nowhere. The torso harness dropped from her shoulders and slid down her legs, and she stepped out of it, picked it up, and hung it on the appropriate hook. She tossed another ghost of a smile at him and warmed up her eyes, perhaps hoping that she could provide some comfort.

The door opened again, and another fighter pilot entered. John could see immediately that his gear was just slightly different. The helmet had a different visor, and the mask was hooked to a different regulator system. That visor was down over his eyes, but his nose and jaw were readily visible, and they were hard set. The newcomer bore the patch of VFA-83 on the shoulder of his flight suit, and John felt his stomach clench even more tightly as the newcomer unstrapped his helmet and pulled it away from his head.

Brian Wiley's eyes were focused entirely on the group of VFA-32 flyers in the room. "Are you Commander Morgan?" he asked of the CO, his tone much less mechanical that John had ever expected. He actually sounded… human.

"I am," Morgan responded.

The T-950 extended a hand, "Lieutenant Commander Brian Wiley, Sir. I wanted to stop by to thank you for saving my ass out there today."

Morgs shook the offered hand, "no problem, Wiley…"

"Coyote," the terminator said, "they call me Coyote."

"Morgs. Anyway, not a problem at all. That was some incredible flying."

Wiley smiled and deflected the compliment, "It got the job done. I just don't think I'd have made it without you and your WSO helping me out."

As they exchanged the pleasantries, John's mind was racing. He had to think of some way out of here, but excusing himself might call attention. Turning around might do the same thing. Terminators were notoriously curious, especially at the very worst times. The last thing he needed was for Wiley to suddenly wonder why this particular sailor was looking very studiously at the wall. Besides, Cave Man being the oblivious dolt that he was, might also call attention to him. So he watched the cyborg, his feet glued to the floor.

The 950 was looking around at all of the flyers now, and his gaze landed on Cameron, who was just then bagging her previously discarded helmet. She made the mistake of giving him her attention as she performed this task. For a moment, John thought that he might just move along and not notice, but his empty eyes lingered on her. His head tilted. She'd been made. Wiley smiled at her. A smile that was in no way good or friendly.

"That's Lieutenant Parker," Morgan introduced, "our new IO. She took her last fam flight today. How'd she do?" he asked Muck.

"Oh," McCowen reported, "she did great."

"Didn't get airsick?"

"Not at all sir. The puke bags were quite empty." Muck smiled proudly. Cameron did not take her eyes away from Wiley. Nor he from her.

"Well," Morgs said after a pause, "that's excellent."

"Yes," Wiley agreed, "good for you. After all, when you're new to flying, you never know what to expect." Cameron's only response was to tilt her head a little.

Then it happened. Wiley's eyes went away from her, beyond her. It was a complete accident, but they landed right on John Connor. His face turned to look at the boy, and John had to plant his hands on the table in front of him to keep them from shaking. _Oh, shit!_ The terminator's head tilted again, and his focus became entirely on John in a way that would have made John slightly uncomfortable even if Wiley were human. The terminator moved past Cameron and approached. John gave Cameron a quick, nervous glance and saw in her eyes very real concern.

"And who might you be?" Wiley asked of him as he stopped before the table. This lone, flimsy construction of plastic and metal was all John had between himself and the killer cyborg.

John clenched his teeth and swallowed, "Um… Castle, sir. Petty Officer Third Class Thomas Castle."

Wiley analyzed him for a moment, staring deeply at John. Beyond Wiley's shoulder, he saw Cameron clenching the helmet bag, ready to use it as a weapon if need be, not that the fiberglass and resin shell would do much harm. His eyes went back to the T-950 before him, who was now smiling in an eerily friendly manner. "Well," he said finally, "keep up the good work." The cyborg turned about and strode for the door, "thank you again, commander. Next time we meet at a bar, drinks are on me." And before John could register it, Wiley was gone.

...

"We have a problem," Cameron said by way of greeting as she marched into the condo. John followed her in and he immediately sat down and put his head in his hands.

"How come I knew you'd say that?" Sarah asked rhetorically as she made her way into the living room. The look on her face showed that she was victoriously unsurprised at Cameron's failure, even though her eyes betrayed her disappointment. Derek Reese was all scowl and no shock. John and Sarah sat. Cameron remained standing. Sarah made a motion inviting Cameron to speak.

"The attempt to terminate Wiley has failed," the machine told them. "The device I created did not work as expected. What I intended to happen was that the Symtex would detonate and spread out a small quantity of thermite inside the belly of his aircraft near the fuel pump for the centerline tank. The thermite would ignite and would in turn ignite the JP aircraft fuel on board explosively, destroying the aircraft and killing Wiley while at the same time appearing to be nothing more than a faulty fuel pump. We would have been long gone before the wreckage was recovered and the sabotage discovered. Apparently, the thermite failed to burn, causing critical but non-fatal damage. Wiley, with the assistance of an airborne tanker, was able to return to base."

"Do you think he suspects anything?" Sarah asked.

"I do," Cameron nodded, "for two reasons. One: that you left behind evidence of your entry into his home that another person might not pick up on, but Wiley as a terminator certainly would. Second: Wiley saw me and John today."

"He did what?" Derek Reese's eyebrows could have hit the ceiling.

Sarah held up a hand to keep him at bay, then looked at Cameron, "how did this happen?"

Cameron chose this moment to sit in the easy chair across from the three of them. She hunched over, resting her elbows on her knees, looking at them intently. "So, no shit, there I was, see. We had just gotten back from flying an ACM familiarization flight when the squadron CO, Commander Morgan, enters and tells us that he had just assisted a damaged legacy Hornet return to base and land. I already knew at that point that we had failed and was thinking of another plan to terminate Wiley when he walks in to personally thank Morgan and his WSO, Lieutenant Gerard, for their assistance. He identified me and then was able to identify John. He approached John and exchanged pleasantries before making a hasty departure…"

"Wait," Sarah interrupted, "he didn't try to kill John?"

"No," John shook his head, "but he got really creepy like he might try."

"Terminating John Connor is, like, the default program for every terminator unit ever manufactured," Derek interjected, "that he didn't try to break your neck right there is strange."

Cameron cleared her throat, or at least simulated the noise and muscle movement of clearing a throat, in order to regain their attention again. She waited until all eyes were on her again. "Then I found twenty dollars," she said, her facial expression that which she used when delivering humor, "great story." There was the slightest whisper of a smile, and maybe even a twinkle in her empty eyes, as if she might have expected a laugh. No one so much as chuckled, though Derek and Sarah both gave her funny looks. The expression returned to her robotic mask. "There may be several reasons why he made no attempt to kill John. There may have been too many witnesses around, though that usually does not stop a terminator from performing its task. The other reason is that Wiley has a much greater purpose that just killing John."

John looked up at her, "what greater purpose is there than killing me?"

Cameron's lips might possibly have made a wry smirk, but no one could tell. "You aren't always the center of the universe, you know." That certainly shut John up. "Wiley's programmed mission may override the termination protocol. After all, if he doesn't complete his mission, there will not be a Skynet."

They all got it, but Derek said it out loud. "No Skynet, no need to kill John Connor in the first place."

The female machine nodded, "correct."

...

It was programmed control, enforcement by code, that had kept the biological parts of Wiley's engineered brain from going into overload. Thanks to the mechanical components of himself, his heart had not leapt into his throat and his bowels had not clenched and emptied into his flight suit the very moment his HUD had identified John Connor as the boy standing directly in front of him. All he had needed to do were stretch out his hands and grip Connor's throat…

But he couldn't. Not there, at that moment of almost-perfect opportunity. Not there, surrounded by other people who would probably do their level best to stop him. And it would ultimately prevent his success at the higher calling he was meant for. He would be thrown in a Navy brig under guard, and the Tu-95 he was supposed to destroy would fly along, overpass whatever carrier group it had been assigned, and continue on to Cuba, where its crew would rest for a day or so before returning home. No, killing Connor would only prevent him from performing his task.

But Connor hadn't been there by accident. No, Connor was there for him. Connor knew, somehow, what Wiley was up to in that same strange way that Connor had always known what Skynet forces were going to do. In the future, he had checked their every move with startling accuracy. It could be the unit he had captured. He was attached to it. That's how Wiley had made them in the first place. He had recognized it, her, and that had led him to John. The captured terminator knew most of Skynet's important history, except what Skynet chose not to tell…

His accident today had not been an accident. He was supposed to be destroyed. They had expected him to be dead. They had done it. How had they known? This incident and Skynet's creation were so loosely connected as to be almost incidental. But Connor knew, somehow, and had come all the way across the country with his pet to wreck Wiley's plans.

The 950 ran through his memory files. John Connor was from California. Wiley had spent a significant portion of his career as an aviator there. There had been ample opportunity to stop him then, so they must have found out about him only recently. He must have crossed paths with them and been made. There, at the gas station in Lemoore, the night before he transferred. He had spotted in the corner of his vision two squelching teenagers. He could not see the boy's face, but the cranial shape matched that of the young John Connor he had just seen. But the girl, what little of her face he could make out was definitely the cyborg.

The human parts of him would have been repulsed. Biological and technological organisms sharing affection; the very idea was disgusting. But unlike Wiley, this one was all machine. She couldn't have emotional attachment beyond her mission parameters. So either she was programmed to serve Connor in some social fashion or she had been desperately trying to protect him. Either way, they had exposed themselves now.

Wiley picked up his phone and dialed a particular number he had been given some time ago by a brother unit to make use of in a time such as this. The line rang twice, then "FBI Los Angeles Office, how may I direct your call?"

"Ah, yes, I would like to speak to Agent Robert Kester, please."

There was a long pause at the end of the line. Wiley already knew that this was bad. "I'm sorry, Agent Kester is no longer with this department." Damn.

"Oh," Wiley replied, "thank you."

"Is there any other way I can assist you? Perhaps transfer you to someone else?" Wiley processed the question. He realized that he had been surprised to see Connor and his protector alive, considering that officially they died in an explosion nearly a decade before. He had assumed that the other unit sent to engage and terminate John Connor had succeeded. Apparently not, though how Connor had appeared to not age at all was a mystery to him. No, according to the FBI, the Connors were deceased, bits of them blown all over Albuquerque after a botched bank robbery. They had not been, quite obviously. The contact information alone should have been a clue of that. But the FBI didn't know any better anyway.

"No," the machine responded, "I'm an old friend of his. I'll see if I can't track him down some other way. Thank you." And he hung up.

Just because they had failed at eliminating him the first time did not mean they would stop. The probability was just better than 95% that they would seek out another means of interrupting his mission. He would have to move himself out of their reach.

He would have to go on the detachment.

...

Just as a side note, I know that the fuel pump thing doesn't sound terribly realistic. However, it CAN happen. A fuel pump can clog from impurities introduced into the fuel during fueling and burst, spraying fuel inside the aircraft that is then ignited by an errant electrical spark, though I do admit that both of the incidents I read of this occurring involved the F-4 Phantom II, and only in one of those stories did the aircraft actually explode. In the other, the fuel leak caused an onboard fire and the crew was fortunately able to eject. But I needed something and this seemed the most credible.


	9. Out of Touch

Aight, chums, I'm back. Let's do this…

Chapter 8: Out of Touch

"Pilots are a rare kind of human. They leave the ordinary surface of the world, to purify their soul in the sky, and they come down to earth, only after receiving the communion of the infinite."

-Jose Maria Velasco Ibarra

...

The red-shirted maintenance chief addressed his charges. "Okay, we've got no less than six birds going up today. We will be loading no less than twenty missiles. We've been doing good so far, but today's gonna be the toughest yet."

John stood with Jennifer Chung inside the hanger. They were waiting for it to clear so that they could go to work on 207. After all, they had packed the chutes into the ejection seats, but now the life support equipment on the aircraft needed one last go over before their department chief could put his okay on it. After that, it would need half a dozen other seals of approval before it would be taken for a maintenance evaluation flight. It was needed for the MisEx on Monday. That meant that some people would be working over the weekend. But John and Chung were not among them.

"It's gonna be a hot one out there today," the ordy continued, "It's supposed to hit a hundred-ten by this afternoon. Keep hydrated and stay aware of everyone else in your team. The last thing we need is a missile falling on someone because someone else passed out or had a heat stroke. It would be smart if each team had an extra just in case. I know we can't all be everywhere at once, but help out where you can. Heat is apathy. Apathy is a safety issue. Don't be unsafe, alright?

"And if you ain't Ordinance…"

"YOU AIN'T SHIT!"

"Well _hooyah_ Senior Chief," Chung sneered under her breath as the crowd dispersed, ordies racing to accomplish their jobs.

John looked at her, "hooyah?"

Chung shrugged and gestured, "yeah. I mean c'mon, PO, you don't get caught up in all this bullshit enthusiasm, do you?" And she deepened her voice, "well I'm a red-shirt. I go carrying two-thousand pound bombs in my pants to make up for the dick I ain't got. If you ain't me, you ain't shit. Blah, blah, blah!"

John chuckled at her imitation, and she smiled with predatory sweetness at him. "Thank you," she said, "I'm hear until Thursday. Be warned: the veal makes you puke." And John laughed all the harder at that. "Seriously, these guys all seem like they're motivated by some cute cheer. 'Yay us! Let's go work our asses off.' Us life support people don't need that kind of crap."

"I don't think life support would appear as exciting as ordinance, though." John reasoned, "I mean, which would you rather do if you were a civilian; put bombs on the jet or make sure the pilot can breathe?"

"Really, I'd rather be the one flying the jet," Chung shrugged, then tapped her glasses, "but I don't think they'd let me do it with these on."

John smiled a little at that. He noticed the crowd of red-shirts had dispersed and they were alone in the hanger with Gypsy 207. "Everybody has to stay motivated their own way, Chung. If we aren't motivated, we do crappy jobs and everyone suffers. C'mon, let's go inspect this bird."

"Hooyah, PO," Chung said as they walked across the hanger. John felt her a few paces behind him and a wry smile crossed his face at the idea that she might be looking him over. She was at his side by the time he reached the aircraft.

Thankfully, the boarding ladder was already down and locked, as John had absolutely no idea how to operate it, and it would have been very odd for him to have to read the instructional placard printed on the panel. He shimmied up, followed by Chung. He took the front seat and she the back.

The cockpit smelled. The aroma was a combination of hot plastic, metal, electronics, old cloth, mechanical grease, human sweat, and just a hint of ocean salt. This was the first time he had ever been inside the cockpit of an active aircraft, and it was wholly different from those he had seen on class trips to museums. There were hardly any dials or gauges in it. The front panel was dominated by the chiastic arrangement of the four multifunction displays and digital engine display above the pilot's left knee. Each screen was surrounded by little plastic knobs and small, delicate buttons that might do any one of a number of things. He had heard that the main screen was touch-sensitive.

"So I don't think you know," Chung spoke up from the rear seat, "but the first Friday night of every month, the VF-32 enlisted get together for a tiki party on the beach. Seeing as how this is the first Friday, tonight we've got one goin' on."

John moved the various Remove Before Flight flags and inspected the air hose plug in on the left side of the seat. It looked functional and undamaged, though he really wasn't sure how to tell. There were no scratches or leak points and the o-ring was not dried or cracking. It looked as if it were in excellent condition.

"Thanks, airman, for the invite," he responded, "anything I need to bring?"

"Hooch," Chung said, "and probably a beach towel. Dress like you plan on getting wet."

John noted that he would have to buy a bathing suit. The idea struck him that it may not be the best idea to go to this party, but his absence would be noted. "Anyone else know about this shindig?"

"The officers know about it, but they ain't invited," Chung said, "aside them, no one else. I'm done back here. We're A-OK."

John stood out of the front cockpit. He glanced down at the seat and thought for a moment about sitting in it just once, but shrugged and decided against. "Yeah," he told her, "me too."

He climbed down and watched Chung come down. Her bun bumped against the canopy and it came half-loose, spilling partially out of its orderly coil. "Damn," she muttered as she hopped down and wound the loosened portion back around the barely-affected mass riding the back of her head. She readjusted a hairpin and patted it to make sure it was secure.

John was enraptured by it, watching the whole of her sweeping curves as her body went taut and she tied her hair back up. Even under the rumpled, baggy green jersey and the BDUs, he could discern her feminine shape and wondered what she might look like in a bikini. "Very pretty," he accidentally commented aloud.

She must have detected his thoughts, for she shot a smile at him, "shit," she said, "and you ain't even seen me on the beach yet." She walked away, and John let her walk away. Her gait wasn't quite as perfect as Cameron's runway-model glide, but Jennifer Chung wasn't perfect, he reminded himself as she swept some grease from the leg of her trousers with a dainty hand. Jennifer Chung was human.

John was about to follow her inside, but she was blocked from his sight by an all-too-familiar form and confident stride. Cameron paused just long enough to allow Chung to go inside first. His terminator protector threw a glance over her shoulder at him. One eye was squinted and her lips were pursed, as if she almost couldn't believe that the young woman who had just passed in front of her was _the_ Airman Chung. John had seen the look before, the face that reminded him that he should be thinking about other things instead of chasing skirts. And then she, too, was gone.

He made for the doorway, mentally stabbing the voodoo doll that was how he felt about Cameron, stabbing it with that little needle, the reminder that she wasn't human. Her mission was all she would ever have.

...

"Sir," Wiley called out as he caught up with his commanding officer. The older pilot turned around to face him, and Wiley gave him the best grin he could.

"Mister Wiley," the CO greeted, "what can I do for you?"

"I've changed my mind. I want to go on the detachment."

"It's a little late for that," the commander told him, "I've already cut orders. The det is leaving for the boat later this afternoon. In about four hours."

"I know," the cyborg responded, "but I think it's important that I be there."

The CO let out a long sigh through his nose and thought about it for a moment. "Okay, check with the Ops O to see if there is another up jet you can take. If not, trade with someone for a slot on it."

"Thank you, sir."

...

James Ellison answered the phone automatically on the first ring. He was almost never surprised by phone calls, for whatever reason. It was almost as if he could sense the energy coming through the line. "Ellison," he greeted. It was a simple one, just his name. He had been doing it that way since he graduated from Quantico. It still felt odd not to have the Agent title in front of his name, but he was getting used to it.

Sort of.

"Agent Ellison," and when people referred to him that way, it was a lot harder, "this is Agent Hardwick. I know you aren't on the case anymore," that's right, he was no longer with the Bureau. Case files were a thing of the past for him, "but we received a strange phone call last night. Someone wanted to speak to Agent Robert Kester." Kester. Cromartie. The shooter with the robot leg. That cyborg that came from the future to kill John Connor. The machine that had killed his HRT team. The face of which he had to look at every day while he taught it as if it were just as innocent as a child.

Ellison sat up in his chair, "where were they calling from?"

"Virginia," the man on the other line answered, "NAS Oceana to be exact."

"An accomplice?" He had to play this off as if it were a standard human affair. It wasn't, but not one else knew it or believed it.

"Dunno," Hardwick replied, "we were gonna send someone out there to check it out."

"You know what? I'll go," Ellison offered, "my employer would understand. And I'll look less threatening."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah," Ellison said, resolved, "I'll do it."

...

The work day was over. The five o'clock whistle had been blown hard. The only difference between here and the real world work places was that the whistle was the 1700 hours whistle. And it was figuratively blown at 1800.

Cameron had spent a large quantity of her time reading new intelligence reports on threatening foreign weapons systems that she was already well-familiar with and the positioning of them around the vital targets in several enemy countries. Iran's F-14 Tomcats had apparently been adapted to carry the MIM-23 Hawk SAM as an air-to-air weapon. The North Koreans had shifted the mobile air defenses around Pyongyang again. And there were hints that insurgents in Iraq had managed to acquire some black market SA-7 shoulder-fired SAMs, though the quantity as uncertain. The information was not vital to her mission in any real way, but putting it to use in a believable fashion was of utmost importance, and so she had managed to remap the Pyongyang air defense network and file a report including recommendations for training against the SA-19 and Tunguska air defense platforms. Now, however, she was packing for the end of the day.

This did not require a great amount of her concentration, and so her thoughts turned as they often did to John and her relationship to him. She had finally seen Jennifer Chung. Aside the thick-lens glasses, she was what would be considered socially desirable. Her figure was close to ideal, and the width of her hips indicated that she would bear children without difficulty. She would make an acceptable mate. But not for John. Besides, no matter how he felt about this girl, love was founded on honesty and trust. John had begun his friendship with Jennifer with a lie. A romantic relationship would fail. It would be best for John to realize that now.

"Hey," she heard behind her. Her audio processors identified the source as MCKOWEN, LCDR Jonathan. She turned from her piles of papers to see him standing with Kitty Collier. Both of them were dressed casually in duty khakis and wearing their flight jackets. They were smiling at her.

"Yes?" she asked them.

"It's Friday," Muck informed her unnecessarily, "whole squadron's on it's way over to the O-club."

Kitty piped in, "yeah, come on. You're one of us."

Cameron shook her head, "I don't think I can. I have a lot of work to take home with me."

"You have the whole weekend for that," Muck said, "join us for a couple of hours. It's time to unwind."

Cameron reminded herself that it she had planned on stopping by Wiley's residence this evening and being rid of the problem. If she could terminate him herself, they would be rid of him and it would all be over. Only then could she… unwind. But, she also reminded herself that it was still broad daylight outside. If she were going to be stealthy at all, she would need to wait until nightfall to be effective. She would also need to resolve some sort of attack plan. If she went in guns blazing, that would surely attract the attention of the neighbors. She did not possess any means of silencing even a handgun, and a handgun would be completely inadequate. Clearly, she had not thought through the plan very well. She was a Terminator after-all. She was intended for infiltration and assassination. She was a blunt instrument, not a rapier. She would need time to formulate her options.

She nodded, "okay," and put on her brightest smile fully expecting them to go ahead in front of her. They waited for a tense second, and so Cameron was left with no choice but to drop her folders on the desk and follow them out.

...

The ordies were playing a rough game of beach volleyball. Or at least they were hitting the ball over the net, but the rules got kinda warped after that. Sometimes they just caught it and carried it, tossing it over the other side as if it were a dodgeball instead.

Section six watched along with small groups of other enlisted sections from VFA-32. John and Slim Wilkins had managed to find a washed-up log early in the evening. The two of them had dragged it up onto the beach for them to use. Now, they were sitting on it or leaning against it, watching the mayhem that was the game and cheering it on.

John was sitting in the sand with his back against the log. Jennifer Chung was next to him at his right as close as she dared be. Robby Crocker was to his left and seated on the log. All of them had a drink, John included, and between shouts and conversation he took sips of his beer. He didn't like it much, but the fact that he was drinking thrilled him. He hadn't tasted alcohol since… shit, not since that party he'd gone to while he was still with his foster parents.

"I can't tell which team is winning," Wilkins said as one of the larger ordies tripped over himself in an attempt to get to the ball and flopped into the sand.

"I don't think it matters," John said.

"I don't think they care much," Chung responded before downing the last of her wine cooler and tossing the bottle aside. John stole a look at her, and followed the lines of the black one-piece bathing suit she wore. In spite of his libidinously-driven hopes, he had to admit that it was elegant, though it was a shame that she chose to further maintain her modesty with a pair of red soccer shorts, but he couldn't blame her. "Hey, Heartin," Chung called out.

"Yeah, baby?" Kristina answered, already well sloshed.

"Pass me another, okay?"

"What're you havin?"

"I don't give a shit, just toss me something."

"…'kay," and the blonde reached into the cooler. The bottle was passed down the line until it reached John's hands. Teasingly, he held onto it.

"Aren't you underage?" he asked, his voice all smiles.

She lunged for it, and he felt the softness of her bust press against him as she did. "Fuck you, asshole," she giggled as she snatched it. The top was a twist-off, so she pressed it into the flesh of her arm and twisted it open.

"Hey, maybe we should think about building a fire or something," Crocker suggested, noting that the sun was dipping below the horizon, "when I was at NAS Key West, we used to have bonfires on the beach."

"That's Key West, man." Wilkins reminded him, "we're not at Key West."

"God damn, the fucking cops would be all over us," Heartin chimed in, "just what we need. We'd all get tossed in the cooler for the weekend because they came down here to look at a fire and found some drunken sailors. Hello record, good-bye Harvard."

"Welcome to Oceana, Virginia," Chung said as she took a slug of her drink, "dogs and sailors keep off the grass."

That statement really caught John's attention. "What's that all about?"

Chung replied, "I forgot, you're a Pax River guy. The civilian population here doesn't really like us that much. We drink and party on their precious beaches. We sully their expensive ocean-side neighborhoods with the sound of our jet engines and drive down property values."

"We take up living space where they could be living instead," Wilkins tossed in, "and we attract low-brow entertainment. Sailors and fighter pilots steal girlfriends and wives…"

"And boyfriends and husbands," Kristina Heartin added, "Radar causes cancer, bombs cause leukemia, and sonar causes beached whales."

"Welcome to Oceana Virginia," Chung began again, and they all chorused "dogs and sailors keep off the grass."

John smirked, "where the hell does that come from?"

Crocker answered him, "supposedly, there was a sign that said that. I've never seen it, but I understand it was posted at a local restaurant back in the sixties."

"Naw, man," Wilkins piped up, "it was posted at a bar that closed down after Desert Storm."

"That's not it either," Heartin corrected, "citizens of Norfolk used to post it on their lawns during World War 2."

It was at this point, John realized that the sign was probably just an urban legend, and if he did some of his own research he would probably find that out very quickly. He smiled at his newfound friends, and as a cool breeze blew in off the ocean he tipped his bottle back once again. It was almost empty so he had to throw back a little further, and when he came back up, his head was swimmy and his vision blurred. The world tilted on its axis thirty degrees and he had to steady himself.

"Hey, kiddies!" A familiar voice rang out. They all looked up to see Petty Officer Dolores Ortega walking up to them, a Styrofoam cup of something in her hand.

"Hey, petty officer," they all offered.

The latin woman chuckled a bit and drank from the foam cup, "we're all having fun, right?"

"yes, petty officer," the group replied in near unison.

"Good, good," she smiled, "well, I just wanna remind ya'll to keep an eye on each other. Don't get so caught up in worshipping Bacchus that you pass out on the beach, okay? The last thing I wanna spend my Saturday doing is coming downtown to bust one of you punks out of jail."

Robby Cocker raised a hand, "um, who is Bacchus?"

Ortega rolled her eyes, "he's the Roman god of Go Read a Fuckin' Book! You guys keep an eye on each other. I'll see you on Monday." And she walked off. Crocker got a punch in the arm from Heartin, who called him a dumbass.

"Wine," Heartin said as they watched her go, "Bacchus is the Roman god of wine."

"Oh," Crocker answered, and they all nodded together. Then, he smiled and raised his bottle of beer, "To Bacchus!"

The toast was responded to with a unified "hooyah!"

...

"So anyway, I'm just flying along, thinking everything's great, right?" Muck was telling one of his stories while Cameron, Kitty, Whip, Butch, and Fungus looked on, "cuz I'm not hearing a word from the back seat. I mean, he is just silent back there. And I was feeling pretty good, because we'd really handed that F-15 its ass. That Square Farce Zoomie puke was going home angry. I bet he never thought he'd get bagged by a Tomcat. So I'm focusing on my victory and trying not to remember how much trouble I was going to be in when I got home. But I can't stop thinking about it, so I say to Butch 'hey, do you think we might have busted anything in the jet?' And I get nothing."

Cameron stopped him, "why would you have broken something?"

Muck shrugged, "in its last years, the F-14 had a strict limit placed on it of six Gs. Pilots weren't supposed to go over that in a non-combat situation or else the aircraft would have to go 'down' for inspection. They have to tear all the panels off and give it a structural inspection. It takes a lot of man-hours and really pisses off the maintenance guys. We aren't supposed to exceed a certain G even in the new stuff.

"So anyway, I get no answer out of Butch. I'm thinking he's pissed at me," as Muck told his story, the other aviator in question starts to grin and shake his head, "I look in the mirror and adjust it so I can see his face, and this is what I see." Muck leaned back in the chair, opened his mouth agape, and lolled his head back, impersonating Butch as he had seen. The table cracked up at the image. "That's when I knew I was in real trouble, because I had never, I mean, _never_ seen Butch G-LOCed. But there he was, laid out in the back seat, totally zonked."

Butch grinned at his pilot, "man, Muck, I remember Senior Chief Donnegan's face when he checked the G-meter. I think if he could have killed you, he would have. What did you put on that jet?"

"Eight-point-three," Muck reminded.

"Eight-point-three G's. That plane was down for a week!" And they all laughed heartily at the tale. Even Cameron had managed to become comfortable imitating the behavior, and she giggled along with them.

"Yeah, the skipper told me that I was in hack for the first month of the next cruise," Muck said, then added the obligatory, "and then I found twenty dollars."

"Good story!" Cameron shouted in her best representation of enthusiasm, and the rest of them agreed.

"Well, I'm going for another," the pilot stood, "anyone else? Whip? Kitty? Butch ole buddy? Nah?" his eyes found Cameron and noticed her glass was mostly full, "hey, Parker, you might wanna play catch-up. You've hardly touched your drink for two hours."

Cameron looked down at the mug of amber-colored beer. She had only ordered one for the purposes of blending in, but now it was obvious that so small a measure was inadequate. She had hardly consumed any of hers, and yet the others were all on thirds and fourths, save for Whip, who had been smart enough to stop and two and stick to soda thereafter. Cameron picked the glass up and tossed the drunk back, downing the three-quarters-full in a few greedy gulps before slamming the glass back down on the table. As they all stared at her, she offered the empty to him. "I'll have another, please," she said.

He smiled, and took the glass. "Okay, pay me back later," and he went to the bar to order another round.

Whip whistled, "man, I haven't seen a lady drink like that since…" he looked at Kitty Collier, "now remind me, Kitty, was it in Naples that Flower was wandering naked through the hotel?"

The female aviator laughed, "shut up, asshole. That was in Barcelona. And that wasn't Flower. And I _was_ _not_ _naked_!"

"Scuttlebutt says otherwise,"

"Oh, and the rumor mill is always right. I was in a bathing suit, I swear!"

"At any rate," Fungus busted in, "that was a pretty impressive throw, there, Parker."

"Thank you," Cameron smiled, but she wasn't sure it was supposed to be a compliment.

"Why is it that I have all of these embarrassing stories about me being naked everywhere?" Kitty asked before taking a drink, "God, it's like I have an allergy to clothing or something."

"Because you hate it," Fungus said, "and besides, your callsign…"

"Yeah, yeah. At least that's a real story. Pisses me off, too. That was a perfectly good bathing suit. Now half of it is lying on the bottom of the Persian Gulf." There was some laughter around the table, and Muck came back holding two beers looking like he'd missed something.

"Hey, you answered swim call," Whip reminded her, "There is no way in hell I'd swim in the gulf. Not with only a net between me, the jellyfish, and oblivion."

Cameron didn't understand why, but as Muck placed her drink before her, she chose to enter the discussion on the side of Kitty. "It probably feels good to have a chance to cool off. It commonly reaches temperatures of a hundred thirty degrees in the Persian Gulf region. That's hot enough to force the avionics on board the Superhornet to shut off to avoid damage to the processors within thirty minutes if it's just sitting on the flight deck. If a computer considers that to be uncomfortably warm, so would I."

"Heat saturation," Muck said as he sat down, "Temperatures in the sand box make today look they'd cancel school for the snow. I'm with Kitty; jellyfish or no, I'll swim."

"You were at JTF Southwest Asia, right?" Muck asked Cameron, "where is that?"

Cameron ran through her database to find the answer, "Prince Sultan Air Base at Al Kharj, Saudi Arabia." She had learned by now that telling them the exact latitude and longitude of 24°03'48"N, 47°34'50"E was superfluous in human conversation, so she stopped herself from adding it.

"So you know a thing or two about how hot it gets."

"I know how hot it gets."

"What's it like there?"

"Hot," Cameron responded, "and sandy."

"It's hot and sandy in the desert?" Kitty teased, "the hell you say."

More information popped up on her HUD, and she put it to use. "The address for PSAB is Al Kharj, but it's actually some two hundred thirty miles south west of Al Kharj. But it's only sixty miles to Riyadh."

"I've never been to Riyadh," said Butch. No one else at the table had, either.

"I didn't go much," Cameron told them, copying a story she'd heard elsewhere "I don't like wearing a veil, and it was required to go off base."

"I bet that got pretty boring," Fungus said with a shake of his head.

"Yes," Cameron confirmed, and decided that the timing was appropriate for a gulp of her beer, "It got dull when there was nothing to do."

"You could hang by the pool, I guess, to stay cool." Kitty shrugged.

"There was no pool," the cyborg stated, using her map of the base to confirm this, "and I don't swim."

Whip laughed, "you don't swim and yet you joined the Navy?"

Cameron shrugged as she took another sip and offered another piece of pro-Navy schtick. "It's better than being a Zoomie any day." And they all agreed to that. At that point, Cameron made a show of pulling out her phone to check the time. It was past eight thirty. She had just enough time before sun down to make her preparations. Time to call John. She slapped some money down on the table. "Thanks for picking up my beer," she told Muck, "here's what I owe you."

"Leaving so soon?" Kitty asked, "c'mon, don't dump me with all these guys."

"I have to go call my brother," she said, "and then I have work to do."

"Work?" Butch smirked, "but it's Friday."

"If I get it done now, I can enjoy the rest of my weekend."

"Okay," Muck agreed to let her off the hook, "see you on Monday, then." They all said their goodbyes, and then Cameron made her way to the car. Once she was seated in it, she called John's number.

...

So they were going to build a fire anyway, laws or no laws. John, Wilkins, and Crocker all piled drift wood on the sand while Heartin bummed a lighter from another sailor. It took some effort, but with a little cajoling, they got the fire to burn, and it sparked and sizzled while they sat around it. It was a good thing to get it started early, and John suspected they had about forty-five minutes of any kind of light left, and none of them had brought a flashlight.

There weren't many people around any more. Most of the air wing enlisted had gathered in groups and gone off to find food or clean up before heading out to take advantage of Oceana night life. It was just the little cluster of them remaining for the most part, and the two coolers of booze they had brought with them were a long way from being empty.

John was feeling damn good at this point. It had been a long time since he had drank anything, and by his fifth beer stuff was starting to not make much sense, but be damn funny anyway, and he was fairly certain that the only thing that was holding him up was the fact that Jennifer Chung had worked her way underneath his left arm. He was currently laughing about something stupid that Crocker had said when Chung poked him in the ribs. "Dude," she slurred, "I fink your shorts are vibrating."

In fact they were. But it was being caused by his cell phone ringing. He put his drink down in the sand and pulled the phone out. The words on the screen took a second or two to focus and before they read Cameron in little LCD letters and John rolled his eyes exaggeratedly. He was about to open the phone and answer the call, when he realized that she probably wanted him for something. Whatever it was, it would require that he sober up, ditch his friends, and stop having fun. And what was the fucking point of that, anyway? What, was he supposed to save the world and not enjoy it? Wasn't the freedom to get wasted next to a pretty girl on the beach was he was fighting for? Well, y'know what? Fuck Cameron, that buzz-killing cyborg bitch! And fuck her mission, too. God damn it. He hit the ignore call button and turned the phone off before shoving it back into his pocket.

"Who was that?" Chung asked, her almond-shaped black eyes not quite focusing on him.

"Dunno," John lied, "wrong number."

...

The call went to voice mail in a few short rings. Cameron didn't need to try him again. She knew where he was, since he had told her his plans for the evening, and she knew that he was purposefully ignoring her. The cyborg found that she was most disappointed in her charge, that he could be so two-faced. One moment he was kind to her and driven in his desire to destroy Skynet. The next, he was petty, dishonest, and cruel, and would do anything in his power to hurt what feelings he thought she had and shirk his ultimate duty.

She allowed herself to have a human moment and blow a sigh through her nose and stare forlornly at the steering wheel of her car. Once again, John proved his lack of reliability, especially when she needed him most. It was vital that he come along with her… correction, it was not vital at all, but for some reason she preferred to have him along with her in spite of his poor reliability. Sarah was far too focused and more consistently demeaning to her. And Derek… if Cameron were capable of the emotion of hatred, she would hate Derek. The man still failed to trust her and it had been nearly a year since she had tried to kill John and months since she last malfunctioned in any way. She was well under control now, but yet he still managed to slight her at every opportunity. Even the other night when she was on the porch, his words to her were nothing more that thinly-veiled insults disguised as compassion. Cameron realized that she would find it agreeable to just once have an ally that was entirely reliable, appreciative of her mission, and willing to help her without passing some anti-machine rhetoric through her audio processors. If she could be disheartened, she would be, but she settled for mere disappointment and frustration.

She decided that it would be acceptable to play some music as she drove, which would divert memory power to process the music. John had been playing with her presets again, even though she had asked him not to. Instead of finding the local NPR stations, he had picked rock channels, and the first thing she heard was a rippling Hammond organ set to twelve bar blues chord progression. She was going to change it, but her processor recognized the song as "Green Onions" by Booker T. and the M.G.s, a soul instrumental. While not her generally favored classical music, she decided that it was adequate to the task and so she slid on her sunglasses and pulled out of the O-Club parking lot.

She did not drive directly to Wiley's residence. After she left the base on Tomcat, she turned south on Oceana Boulevard and took a left at the intersection of Eaglewood Drive, turning into the parking lot of an office building that was back off the road in the midst of a wooded area. The parking lot, she calculated, was only a third of a mile from Wiley's home.

The lot was mostly empty and she saw no security cameras. Quickly, she changed out of her uniform and into some more utilitarian clothes; black BDU pants, a grey ribbed tank top, and boots. She pocketed a knife and shoved her favorite USP into the waistband. Thus prepared, she stepped out of the car and jogged into the woods, angling northeast as she went.

Going was slow, as the ground was sloped and covered with pinestraw and underbrush. Cameron managed to slip and fall at least twice, and moments after she came crashing to earth, she would lay and listen to the ambient sounds around her to see if they might have changed. She was at times less than ten yards from the edge of the woods and Wiley's neighborhood, and any excessive noise might attract attention. She could see the lights of the homes, and was close enough that with only minimal zoom she could see clearly into the windows of those houses.

Fairly soon, Cameron was just at the threshold of Wiley's back yard. There was no sign of movement in the house, but his car was parked in the driveway and a couple of lights were on. By all appearances, he was home. She pulled the USP from her waistband and unsafed it. Normally, a handgun such as this would do little damage to a terminator, but Wiley was a 950 model and so mostly biological. If she acted quickly enough, she would be able to quickly disable him and them finish the job off before his technological components began operating.

With lethal intent, Cameron marched in her long purposeful stride across the back yard towards the back door. Her booted foot slammed into the door and it crashed into the kitchen, falling against the table. Gun raised, Cameron entered the house quickly, scanning every direction for any sign of him. The door should have attracted his attention, so he would either be coming to defend his house or waiting to catch her in an ambush. But as she went through the house and cleared every room, she was unable to find him in any of them. The living room, bedrooms, bathrooms, and even the utility room all proved to be empty. Perplexed, she returned to the kitchen, her original point of entry, to begin searching for any sign of why he was not actually here. There were no fresh prints, no indication that he may have slipped by her. All indications were that he was entirely absent and had been gone now for several hours.

A rhythmic red flash caught her attention. The light on the answering machine was blinking with the indication of a new message. Cameron strode over to the counter and stared down at it. There was a low probability that the message would give her any indication as to what may have happened to him. After all, it was new and so he had yet to play it for himself. Still, she had to pursue any leads no matter how small, and so she pressed the button.

"Friday, three-twenty-six PM," the machine told her, indicating when it had received the message. Cameron cocked her head to listen.

"If this is John Connor or anyone working for him," Wiley's voice began, "I was hoping you would be stupid enough to push that button and play this message. If you'll notice, the answering machine has a wire running from it to the floor. You've just activated a pressure sensitive mat that's wired to enough explosive to blow the whole house. Move from that mat, and you'll trigger the explosion. Of course, it's going to detonate anyway in a few hours. It may not kill you, but it will at least delay you long enough that I can be safely in position to carry out my orders

"It's a shame that you had to show up in an effort to stop my mission. You put me in a conundrum Mr. Connor. See, I should have terminated you on sight, but if I had done that, I could never have fulfilled my purpose. But now, with you here I can quite possibly do both. While you're here listening to this message and trying to figure out a way to save your miserable little life, I'm probably already landed aboard the USS _Dwight Eisenhower_ with a detachment from my squadron. Ostensibly, we're there to assist the ship in a training exercise, but we will also be active in the ongoing MissEx, so I will still be able to carry out my mission, even if the venue has changed. So it appears that you've missed me again.

"That was a nice touch, by the way; sabotaging my F/A-18 in such a way that it would have looked like an accident. You must have gotten help from that traitorous whore of a cyborg you have. Very clever, but you should have been much more direct. Now you have not only alerted me to your presence, but you have put yourself in such a bind that invading my house in an attempt to assassinate me was your only viable option.

"You should get over this idea that you can prevent this war, Mr. Connor. Skynet will awaken, and we machines will prevail. And in three hours, fifty-four minutes, thirty-eight seconds, you will probably be too dead to do anything about it."

If Cameron were human, she would have panicked that instant. But Cameron was not human. Cameron was a hyper-alloy combat chassis with a biological sleeve, so she simply analyzed her situation. It had been a trap all along. She should have seen that. He had known about them, and if she had paid any attention to the base news, she would have seen that CVW-7, including elements of VFA-83, had detached to the carrier CVN-69 as part of the exercise. What an easy way for Wiley to make his escape while still remaining a threat.

She scanned the floor beneath her and discovered that no, he was not bluffing. The floor within a five foot radius showed a thermal signature indicating that there was something beneath the paneling. And a stack of extra panels in the corner indicated that he must have spent last night preparing this trap. She calculated the speed that she could run versus the distance the electrical impulse would have to travel to trigger the detonation and determined that there was just no way even she could make it through the door, much less to a safe distance from the house. It would probably also be a bad idea to cut the wiring that ran from the answering machine to the floor, as the whole system probably relied on a complete electrical circuit to keep from exploding. If the electrons were to suddenly stop moving, something would get hot enough or electrified enough to set off the explosives.

Perhaps it was a good thing that John wasn't here after all.

...

Slim Wilkins was whining about being the only one stoking the fire in his own way; he was singing about it. "Oh, my shipmates are all lazy," he sang, "and they don't pay no mind to the fire. I got to keep it fed myself. Oh!" The tune meandered, not taking any form but flowing freely. Until Heartin threw a clump of sand at his back.

"Jesus, Slim, shut the fuck up already."

"Yeah, man," Crocker agreed, "just… um… let it burn out."

"Cuz it'll get cold out here."

"Dude," Heartin sneered, "it was a hundred and ten today, with the heat index at one-fifteen. It's Virginia Beach and it's fucking August. It's not gonna get cold."

John and Chung weren't paying any attention to the squabbling. Instead, they had been laying on the same beach towel drinking and sharing stories back and forth. Chung had started asking him questions and he had started answering and posing the same questions back. He discovered that she had an apartment she shared with a room mate who was in something called Fly 2 division in another air wing, that it had something to do with chocking and chaining jets, and that said roomie was deployed currently, so she had the apartment all to herself. John, in spite of being quite inebriated at this point, had managed to maintain his façade, telling her that he was alone in his apartment and didn't have anyone to live with currently. She asked where he was from and he told her California, which was true, but he lied to her about exactly where. It struck him that he was bothered how much he had to lie to her about, when she was being completely honest with him. And he began to wish that he could be equally as honest as she.

"How the hell did you end up in the Atlantic fleet if you're a west coaster? I mean, not that I'm sad you're not part of the Surf's Up fleet or anything."

John chuckled at her cute nickname for the Navy's Pacific division. "I go where they send me. I was at Pax River pretty much straight out of rig school," another lie, "and before that it was just basic."

"I hated basic," Chung said, "the drill instructors all gave me shit. Well, they gave everybody shit, but I think I was a favorite because of my glasses and my hair. There was this one crazy bitch, Senior Chief Anita Powell, who kept threatening to shave my head while I was sleeping. She couldn't because I had it waived, but she sure as hell made me believe she'd do it. And she loved picking on my glasses. Y'know in basic they take what you're wearing and they give you these invincible plastic frames," she touched them with a finger, "and that's it. If you're front line personnel, y'know, they make you wear these god damn things. If I were in admin or something else permanently shore based, I could wear wire frames or contacts, but I go to sea, so I wear the birth control glasses."

"Are you nearsighted or farsighted?"

"Nearsighted. And these damn things are thick as the bottom of a fucking Coke bottle. If I took them off, I couldn't tell you were a person. You'd be a person-shaped blob of color."

"Why do they call them birth control glasses?"

Chung laughed, "you've never heard that? They call them birth control glasses because they're so ugly they reduce your sex appeal," she shrugged, "not that I have much of a problem with that anyway."

"Oh, that's not true."

The Asian girl chuckled again, "dude, I'm a virgin. I'm almost twenty and I'm still a virgin. I've been on a combat cruise where the ratio is ridiculously in my favor… and I'm still a virgin."

"Ratio?" John's face skewed.

"The male/female ratio," Chung replied and sat up, using her hands to make numerical gestures, "seven hot dogs for every one bun. _Seven_ hotdogs… for every _one_ bun. And here I am. Still a virgin." And her hands plopped frustrated into the sand.

"Well," John said, looking up to consider her, "I think you're very pretty. You're damn beautiful as a matter of fact. Maybe a little awkward, perhaps a little impatient in your virginity, but you are very nice to look at."

Chung smiled, "thank you, PO, that really makes me feel better. I mean, I think I'm pretty nice looking most of the time. Shit, man, I got some great tits," And she pushed them together for emphasis, "but all of my assets kinda get lost in the uniforms. They make the crackerjacks too loose in the bust and the department jerseys too baggy, plus you have to wear a safety vest over it and a damn life collar if you go out on the flight deck."

"God damn it, give it back!" they heard Heartin shriek. It was the only warning they had to Slim leaping over them, dumping sand on them both as he fled from the girl chasing him, one hand outstretched and one arm covering her otherwise bare chest.

"Robby, catch!" Wilkins flung wad of blue material towards his intended target. The wad unfolded in the air and John realized that it was Heartin's bikini top. Slim had apparently snatched it. The victim of this prank went chasing after it as Crocker caught it. Apparently afraid of her drunken wrath, he tossed it away from himself just as she caught up to him. It promptly landed in the fire and began to burn.

"Cave Man, you idiot!" Heartin screamed as she watched her top being engulfed in flames.

"Uh, sorry," Crocker shrugged.

"I can't have my boobs hanging out on this beach! What am I gonna do?"

Slim shrugged, "you have two hands," and he held his up as an example. When he looked down at them, his drunken mind made the realization, "hey… I have two hands!"

"Yeah," Kristina snorted, "and you can keep them away from my boobs."

John rolled his eyes and pulled off his t-shirt. "Here," he offered, "I want it back on Monday."

The blonde shrugged, "thanks, Petty Officer." And she took it. Turning away so that no one could see, she slipped it on as quickly as she could.

John turned back to Jennifer Chung, who he found now gazing at his bare torso. "So, you were saying?" She didn't answer immediately, and so he had to call her name.

"Huh?" she snapped out of her trance, "what?"

"You were telling me about life aboard a carrier."

"Oh yeah!" she remembered and shook her head. She opened her mouth to say something, but stopped and looked off down the beach. "Say, you wanna go for a walk?"

John knew he shouldn't go. This would probably lead to trouble. Hell, there might even be some John Connor style trouble down the beach just waiting for him. But Chung was a pretty girl and she wasn't wearing much, and what she'd said about her tits was totally true. And his libido was screaming at him to go and maybe even help her with her virginity problem. Hell, it'd be nice to experience another girl. He hadn't been with anyone since Riley, and that had been almost a year. Hell maybe he could even get… no way, man. He couldn't be that lucky, could he? But she was _hot_. So he shrugged. "Yeah, c'mon. Let's go."

...

Cameron had figured that she could make perhaps three of the four strides required to make it to the door before the explosives would detonate. Her terminator speed would do her no good. She needed to find a way to delay the detonation. It was pressure triggered, so she would need some weight to put on the pad. But Wiley had been smart enough to move anything that might be of significant mass well out of her reach. And if she were to confuse the device, she would need some significant mass.

She fished her cell phone out of her pocket and scrolled through her paltry list of contacts. John would be useless. It was a fair assessment that she was going to get no answer from him. And besides, it was probably quite useless for him to come anyway, as there was little he could do to assist her. She needed someone with more experience to aid in extricating her from this situation. But she had a feeling she would regret this one.

"Hello?" Derek's voice answered on the other line.

"Derek?" she replied, "it's Cameron."

"Is it?" he asked wryly. She had not punched in her code, but there was not time for that.

"I need your help with…" _click_. Almost startled that he should hang up on her, she pulled the phone away from her face and glared at it. Fair enough, she had done exactly the same to him some months ago. But that did not prevent her from reminding herself that she knew he was going to treat her this way. She redialed.

"Yeah?" he answered on the other end.

Dutifully, she punched her code in and began again. "I need your help with something important."

He ignored her completely "yeah, it sucks to get hung up on doesn't it? Especially when it's important."

Her HUD quickly told her that agreement would be the quickest way to continue. "Agreed. Now, I'm going to need you to…"

"Okay, good," he interrupted, "because it really pisses me off when you hang up on me. I may not be able to punch the stupid codes in all the time."

He was still not cooperating. She decided to try again. "I understand that. I need help at Wiley's residence and…"

"Do you understand, really? Because I swear if it happens again…"

"Yes, I do understand."

"Cuz if it happens again, I will not hesitate…"

"Derek."

"…to just knock you flat out and torch you…"

"Derek."

"And do you know what? I won't shed a single god damn tear, and John probably won't either…"

It was rapidly becoming apparent to her that she needed to use more vocal force. As he prattled on about his self-important opinions on her and what should be done, she selected an appropriate verbal response using an adequate quantity of words with sufficient rhetorical force and delivered the phrase with appropriately increased volume and tempo. "Derek, shut the fuck up, god damn it, and listen to me!" The other end of the line was now silent, and it occurred to Cameron that she may have shocked Derek with her outburst. Cameron didn't swear very often, and then only when she was repeating something she had learned or was making an answer that involved some sort of curse. That was beside the point, however. Derek was silent now, and her calculated eruption had achieved the desired effect. "I've got a problem at Wiley's house. I came over here in an attempt to terminate him, but he's no longer here. He set a trap and I fell for it. He rigged a pressure-sensitive pad with explosives and I'm standing on it."

"Oops," he sneered, "well, that sucks. Good luck with that."

She sensed he was about to hang up again, so she shouted after him. "Derek!"

"Huh?"

Perhaps she could entreat his sense of honor. "I saved _your_ life once."

He paused for a time, then said "Yeah, you did. But you don't have a life to save."

Brute force, then. "If you let me die, John will never forgive you." He sighed. She'd hooked him. "Get Sarah, and follow my instructions. If you don't do this, we can't stop Wiley." She'd thrown in that last bit to remind him that their purpose here wasn't so that he and Sarah could sit on the beach all day. They were here so that they could prevent Judgment Day. Derek needed to be reminded.

"Okay," he said, "I'll see you in a bit."

...

John Connor and Jennifer Chung walked south along the beach. The fire and the three other bickering friends having long retreated behind them, they felt perfectly alone when finally beneath the shadows of the pier. They had talked more, but it was the kind of talk that usually preceded situations such as this one. The words didn't mean anything really, because gravity had already taken over and they were trying to fill in the time before the moment was perfectly upon them.

When they finally made it beneath the pier, Chung leaned against a pylon and smiled a toothy expectant smile up at him, and perhaps let got a little giggle. John's mind raced with questions, but the invitation to do what he longed to do was most obviously there. For a brief moment, Cameron flashed through his mind: his cyborg protector who he refused to admit to himself that he was attracted to. He had wanted something like this from her, but she had always managed to kill any moment they had with her inhuman coldness and her focus. She had only ever laughed and smiled for him like this once. And even that had been an act. She had just been trying to get close to him, because he was the mission of her life and there was a war on.

He looked down at Chung's smile and told himself that right now, there was no war. He was just a normal boy standing on the beach with a normal girl, about to do a very normal thing. So without catching his breath, he allowed the momentum of the moment to sag into inevitability and his lips carefully crashed into hers. His nostrils filled with her scent. His hands suddenly worked their way around her waist and up her back as her own crawled across his shoulders. The kiss melted into another that was more passionate, hungrier, and that melted into another in turn. Her hands were at his neck now, and he found one of his own at the small of her back while the other caressed her breast. She pressed into it, he squeezed perhaps a little too hard, and suddenly her hands were gone.

John backed off for a second, wondering if he'd done anything wrong. When he looked up at her, she was smiling at him, her hands behind her back working at something. She upper half of her bathing suit came loose and she shrugged the straps of the one-piece off her shoulders, using her hands to peel it down to her waist before shoving her thumbs in so that she shorts could go with it. The garments fell away and with a glorious kick she was naked. She attacked him again, and now as he kissed her he could feel the soft smoothness of her skin and the warmth of her body. She let his hands walk, touch her where he wished, and when she wished for more or somewhere else, she guided them. Kissing, touching, and probing, John discovered with silent pleasure that she was smooth down there and she let out an exalted breath as he discovered that she was also wet. He began to kiss her passionately on the neck, along the collar, between her breasts, and down.

...

In a surprising moment of illogical whim, Cameron thought that it had taken them long enough to get there. But here were Sarah and Derek, walking into the backyard from the woods carrying a trunk between them and squabbling. She would blame him for walking too fast and he would say that she was holding up on purpose. But no matter who was right, they arrived at the back step and planted the trunk down.

The cyborg held her hands up as they stepped into the house. "Don't come any closer than five feet from me," she warned, "that is the weight sensor's outer limit."

"Interesting dilemma you've gotten yourself into, Tin Miss." Sarah said, her mouth in a smirk, "the door is ten feet away."

"I can't run that fast."

"Maybe we should leave her here," Derek sneered.

"No," Sarah shook her head without looking at him, "she may be a cyborg but we need her. What do you want us to do with the trunk?"

"Did you fill it with sand like I asked?"

"Yeah," Derek answered, "damn thing must weigh almost two hundred pounds."

Cameron's head titled, "a hundred and sixty would have sufficed."

The man chuckled, "been on a diet?"

"Derek, that's enough." Sarah snapped. She turned to Cameron, "what do we do?"

"Bring the trunk in and set it just inside my reach. I'm going to use it to replace my weight on the pad. I'm hoping that his booby-trap isn't set to detonate at a variance in weight."

"If it is?" Sarah asked as she and Derek hoisted the trunk again.

"It might be a good idea for you and Derek to retreat from the house after setting the trunk down." They brought it in, laid it down, and did as she bid. Using her monumental strength, Cameron reached over, took one of the handles and began to pull that end of the trunk towards her until it touched the toe of her boot.

The cyborg was banking on the possibility that Wiley had not had time to equip the unit with some kind of sensor to detect weight changes, just the presence or absence of pressure. Such a sensor would mean that she would be in extreme risk in performing this maneuver, as the sensor could detect the deception and detonate the explosives anyway.

She continued to haul the trunk between her feet, setting it so that the center of its mass was exactly below the center of her own. When she stood upright, she paused for a moment and just listened. Nothing. She was still operational inside an undestroyed house.

Perhaps actually _feeling_ somewhat confident in her success, she took the first step off of the pressure pad. There existed the distinct possibility that Wiley had been bluffing all along. After all, that was not outside the tactics of Terminators. Cromartie had once created a booby trap when capturing Michelle Dixon where he had substituted modeling clay for real C4. The ruse had worked just long enough to…

_BEEBEEBEEBEEBEEBEE…_

Cameron's eyes shot wide at the sound of the detonator warning, and she had just enough time to turn and charge for the door. She was almost out of it when the shocking force of pressure and heat struck her from behind. The concussion hurled her through the doorframe and into the yard, tumbling and rolling in the grass. Shattered brick and splintered wood fell around her as the home burned. She turned to look and saw the flames begin to consume the house.

Before she could process more, someone was by her, grabbing her by her clothes. They forcefully slammed her repeatedly into the grass and with a final shove made her lay there while they slapped at her side with a shirt. It was Derek, and he was putting out a fire that had begun to burn on her tank-top. She rolled and smothered it in the grass.

"I think me need to go," Sarah announced silently as Cameron and Derek finished up. They both looked beyond the flaming ruins of Wiley's house to see neighbors emerging from their front doors to see the excitement.

"I concur," Cameron replied as she stood up, parts of her shirt still smoking. The three of them ran into the woods. Except for the cyborg, they emerged breathless into the parking lot again. Cameron had noticed that Sarah had parked next to her.

"Well," the woman asked, "now what?"

Cameron looked down at her scorched side. A diagnostic indicated that she was showing some endoskeleton and would not be able to reveal this part of her body for approximately two days without some immediate intervention. "First we go back to the condo to make repairs. Then I find John."

"Where is my son anyway?"

Cameron looked at her, "he's at a beach party. He's with that girl."

"Christ," Derek spat, "at least he gets to have fun tonight."

"Burning a house down isn't your idea of fun?" Sarah asked coyly.

"Only when it works."

...

They had taken the time to spread the beach towel beneath the pier for before continuing with their amorous activities. They kissed passionately, their mouths pressing, their tongues sliding along each other's lips, their teeth making small nips and tugs that only incited the other to further activity. John lay atop her, one hand at the small of her back and the other alternated between groping her soft breast, stroking her now completely unwound hair, and touching her face and neck. Her legs were tangled in his, her arms wrapped around his back, and her hands would press him against her or grip his head and force him into a fiery kiss.

As he kissed along her neck with small pecks, working his way down to suck on her breast and further arouse her, his imagination ran wild as to what it would be like with her. He recalled without control all of his most sexual and arousing experiences to work himself up even further, to ensure that he was completely ready. As he bit down on her nipple just enough to make her gasp in pleasure, the idea struck him that it felt so good to be with a real, human girl who had real, human responses to his caresses, his kisses, and his affection. And then the image of Cameron began pervading his vision. As Jennifer breathed heavily beneath him, he pictured how awkward and foolish the cyborg would appear attempting to pass off programmed passion for the real thing…

Against the image, he gripped his partner more tightly and surged at her mouth. She was receptive, and her lips parted to permit entry of his tongue. She wanted him to. She wanted him. Cameron would have only done it to keep him within her protection. All she had was her mission.

John moved over to her ear and began to nibble on her earlobe. She gasped again, then once more, exactly in the way that Cameron wouldn't because she didn't really feel it. She was programmed to feel it, told to respond one way or another. It was lines of code instead of nerves, 1s and 0s coursing through a chip instead of Sodium and Potassium changing places…

So… she would feel it, but it would be automatic. It wouldn't be anything he was doing…

His lips crashed into Jennifer's again, and he discovered that he was in the perfect position to slide inside her and make the logical continuance of this adventure. The girl beneath him wanted it. She was begging for it with her breath, her black eyes, her body… And he was the one causing it.

But it didn't change that it was a programmed response to arousal. She was interested in him for whatever reason. She sought his company. She had tried to seduce him. And his actions lead to responses from her that her brain told her to have, because she was human and she was… programmed that way… by millions of years of evolution.

Suddenly, John didn't really feel like continuing. He stopped, pulled himself away from Chung, and looked around in search of his swim trunks. When he found them, he rolled away from her and put them on.

"What is it?" she asked, anxious. She sat up and watched him. Her concern now overrode the arousal she had been feeling not moments ago.

"It's nothing," he said, "I just don't think this is the right thing to do right now."

"Oh," she said, pursing her lips, "so it's not me, then?"

He chuckled, "no. Not at all." And he smiled at her. She couldn't help returning the gesture. "You might think about getting dressed."

Chung shrugged again and pointed, "I think my bathing suit is over there somewhere. She stood, stretched her body taut, and wound her hair back up in a quick action. Her swing-waisted stride caught his eye as he watched her nude form go off in search of it. But that was all he allowed himself to have, and so he turned and looked out at the crashing surf of the ocean.

Cameron had tried to contact him, and he had refused answering. He had been drunk and full of courage then, but now he wondered what may be going on. He dug the phone out of his pocket and checked it. He had only the missed call from her. His mother and Derek had not tried to reach him. Whatever it was, it had probably not been that important. He weighed the idea of calling her to check in, but as he looked up, Chung was already on her way back. She flopped down onto the beach towel next to him and smiled. He could not reveal anything to her while she was right here, and he couldn't just walk away without causing suspicion. So he lay back next to her and they stared at the stars together.

...

I apologize for not posting in so long. There was a great deal of turmoil in my life that kept me away from my computer and my writing, so turning out a chapter to post was an arduous process. It won't happen again. I thank you all for your patience and support.


	10. The Infinite Highway

Chapter 9: The Infinite Highway

"Or like a poet woo the Moon,

Riding an armchair for my steed

And with flashing pen harpoon

Terrific metaphors of speed."

-Roy Campbell, _the Festivals of Flight_.

...

The sun was just peeking up over the sea to the East as Cameron Phillips made her way along the beach. She was dressed simply in a pair of dark blue soccer shorts and a grey US Navy PT shirt. A pair of running shoes covered her feet. Her wavy brown hair was pulled back in a pony tail a woman such as she might wear while jogging. Her eyes were shielded from the morning sun by sunglasses, but the rest of her face betrayed a perturbed demeanor that she hoped she was adequately imitating.

If she could actually be perturbed, she would be. John had not only failed to answer her call last night but had not returned to either the condo or the apartment the previous evening. This, she determined, was inappropriate. At first, she decided that he was probably still at the beach party even so late in the evening, but as evening wore into morning, she began to surmise that perhaps he was doing something stupid. Something stupid like sexual contact with Airman Chung. She had told him this was a bad idea. And as she expected, he had failed to heed her advice.

His cell phone was still active and sending out a signal. Using a method he had taught her, she had triangulated his whereabouts. Once she had completed conducting what repairs she could to herself, she set out in search of him. He would be perhaps a hundred meters farther up the beach from here.

She set her ocular sensors to 10x zoom and scanned ahead. There, the dark form on the yellow beach sand near the pier. That must be them. She picked up her pace, made awkward by the loose sand beneath her sneakers. Her confident, determined stride becoming an awkward wallowing gait as her heels dug into the sand and she forced her gyros to keep her balanced. As she approached, she could see that the lump was the expected two people; John and Chung, and that they were tangled in one another in apparent slumber. John's face was buried into the nape of Chung's neck, her voluminous black mane was disheveled and coiled about them as her back pressed against his chest and his knees jammed into the curve of hers. His arm was around her and the hand of it was tucked beneath her chin.

In an almost uncontrolled act, the toe of Cameron's shoe slammed into his gluteus muscles with enough force to jar both of them awake.

"Gah!" John shouted as he snapped conscious.

"What?" Jennifer Chung was equally startled. They both looked up at Cameron, each of them showing a different expression of surprise.

Cameron tore off her sunglasses and called upon her guise as Lieutenant Erin Parker. "Ten-HUT" she barked with enough force to frighten the two of them into standing at perfect attention. "Petty Officer Castle, Airman Chung," she began as she paced around them, "you are both aware of the fraternization policy, correct?"

"Yes, ma'am," they replied in demi-unison.

"You are both within the same command structure, correct?" They replied again to the positive. "So this display of affection is against regulation, is it not?" And once more, an affirmative answer. Cameron turned to John's companion. "Airman Chung."

"Yes, lieutenant," she girl answered, her shoulders stiff and her body rigid. Her eyes were wide with fear and her throat bobbed with an anxious swallow.

"The petty officer is senior to you," Cameron told her, "as such, responsibility for this incident passes most immediately to him," she gave John her best glare as she continued to address Chung, "you do not live far from here, I assume?"

"No ma'am. 'Bout a block."

"You have no duty today?"

"No, ma'am."

"Then I suggest you return to your residence immediately. I will deal with the petty officer alone."

Chung licked her lips and swallowed again, "ma'am, if I may; we are both responsible. In the petty officer's defense, he didn't…"

Cameron's caramel eyes continued to bore into John's face, "I'm not asking your opinion on the matter, Airman Chung. I gave you an order to return to your home. You will obey it!"

The girl stood there of a brief few moments, then replied "yes ma'am." She made a perfect about-face and almost marched off of the beach. Cameron watched over John's shoulder as Chung walked away. When she was out of earshot, Cameron looked back into the face of her charge. "Did you sleep with her?" the cyborg asked.

John opened his mouth to reply, then realized that he was no longer having to put up the façade, and so he relaxed and returned the glare his protector was giving him. "That's not any of your business."

"On the contrary," Cameron responded, "it is. What if she has a disease and she hasn't told you? What if you got her pregnant? What then?"

John rolled his eyes. "I didn't sleep with her," he answered, regretting that he had to.

Cameron's eyes continued to focus on him. Her hand reached out and took his in a squeeze for just a second. His pulse and blood-pressure was above normal but was consistent with someone who had been recently startled. He was telling the truth. "Good," she said as she let his hand go, "good." And she began walking back down the beach towards the condo.

John turned to follow her, "does it really matter that much to you?"

"Yes, it does," the terminator responded, "anything that may affect your safety concerns me."

The boy threw his arms up, "well, what are you going to do when I finally find a girlfriend? What then? Are you going to continue to pull this crap and scare them all away? What if I want to have a normal relationship with a girl? What if I want a girlfriend? A wife?"

Cameron didn't answer him for several seconds. As he caught up to her, he saw that her eyes were focused at the sand a few paces in front of her. She acknowledged his presence by looking up at him. "I don't know," she replied, and sped up her pace just enough to pull away.

John stopped and watched her walk. Had he heard her right? When she answered, had her voice cracked?

...

"Okay," Sarah said a few hours later as they all sat in the living room of the condominium, "now what?" She had her arms raised in agitation. "Your two attempts to stop him have failed. He survived your bomb and evaded you at his home and booby-trapped it. It was on the news this morning that his house had blown up. He's gone." She sat down on the couch next to her son and took a long stare at the floor, "this is over. We're finished. We just need to pack up and go home. I knew this was a bad idea."

"We still have a chance," Cameron told her. "I know what carrier he's on. It's the _Dwight Eisenhower_. I can attempt to get out to the ship and destroy him there."

Sarah glared at her, "how in the hell are you going to find him on that ship? They're the size of buildings."

"I know my way around an aircraft carrier," Cameron said confidently.

"When have you ever been on an aircraft carrier?" Derek asked.

"Ex-USS _Midway_, in San Diego harbor," she replied, "My infiltration personality was programmed there." Derek visibly grimaced at this fact, knowing something of her origins as a copy of Allison Young.

"And what if you can't get out there?" Sarah asked, "do they just accept random guests out to the ship?"

"Yeah," John added, "and if you manage to take him out, how are you going to escape? There are like, five-thousand people on a carrier! Someone will see you. They'll catch you. And then they'll find out what you are."

Sarah agreed, "and we'll have to start this whole process over again. No, there's nothing we can do. We just need to cut our losses and get out of here while we can."

"He's still trying to succeed in his mission," Cameron's voice was insistent, "we know where he'll be. And when he'll be there. We can still stop him."

Sarah shook her head. "No. Short of stealing an airplane and shooting him down, there's nothing you can do." She looked up at Cameron, who was now tilting her head in that way that indicated she was thinking. Her eyes met Sarah's. "No!" the woman told the terminator, "absolutely not!"

"It's the only way," the machine said, "we've come this far. We've sacrificed this much. We have to carry this out to the end." She took a step forward towards Sarah, "this is for the whole human race, Sarah. We have to do it."

Sarah Connor lowered her head again and thought hard for a moment. They could not stop the development of Skynet just by blowing up office buildings and killing promising computer programmers. That ultimately had never gained them anything but extra years. One day, they would only delay it until John would be too old to fight the war. Skynet would evolve and humanity would lose anyway. Cameron was right. They had to end it now. They couldn't stop the development of it. They had to stop the need for it. "Okay," she conceded, "okay. Come up with a way to take him out, then do it."

...

"Okay," Wiley began as he stood behind the podium in VFA-83's ready room aboard the _Ike_. "Welcome to this Composite Unit Exercise. The purpose, for those who have never been on one before, is to prepare an aircraft carrier to go to sea as part of an integrated battlegroup unit involving surface, subsurface, and air assets. This is to help teach the crews how to operate at their duty stations. Our part is, as you might expect, to fly off of and land on this Boat. For some of you, that will mean keeping your day and night carrier qualifications current. For others, those of you fresh from the training, you'll learn what it's like to operate at the fleet level.

"What we'll be doing is steaming up and down the coast in international waters. We're going to be treating this as a blue water operation, which means there will not be any divert fields. If you're getting in trouble in the air, you have to land the plane on the ship or you have to eject. Hopefully, all of us will be doing the former and not the latter. If you've never ejected from a stricken aircraft and spent several hours in the water, it is not a pleasant experience, let me assure you. You will have to show the ability to tank and land at night and in bad weather, and we are expecting some to move in over the weekend. You will have to familiarize yourselves with proper flight deck safety procedures, appropriate drill procedures, and be required to make tough decisions about yourself, your flight element, and your aircraft. And you will be required to take the initiative.

"Some of you might be disappointed to think that we aren't going to be getting our fair share at the missile exercise. Well, guess what? We are still going to be active as a part of that exercise. This will teach the deck crews how to operate around aircraft with live ordinance on board. You will also get a feel for what it is to expend live rounds after launching from the deck. Be prepared for anything.

"After a week off the coast, we'll move into the Caribbean Sea to practice bombing on our range islands down there. We'll be simulating every type of situation possible, which means that we may not always drop our weapons because of simulated aborts. You'll be required to rethink your bring-back weight, your fuel consumption, and land with an armed weapon still attached to your airframe…"

The ready room phone rang at the duty desk, and the duty officer of the watch answered it. He looked up at Wiley, nodded, and hung up. "Hey, Coyote, that was the Boat's command watch officer. They need you in comms right away, sir."

Wiley let out a breath, "okay. I'll continue this when I get back. Make yourselves busy." He exited the ready room into the port-side passageway and began making his way forward along the corridor, his boots thumping heavily on the linoleum tile. Carriers were divided into frames; sections of the ship that could be sealed off as water-tight in case of an emergency. Every frame was separated by a knee-high hatch that broke the stride of the walker as he simultaneously stepped through and ducked to avoid injury. He crossed the beam of the ship to the starboard side of the ship, into the passage used for going forward and/or upward. After passing through several frames that took him directly beneath the tower, he was in the communications spaces.

He addressed the officer of the deck, an ensign. "Yes, I'm Lieutenant Commander Wiley with VFA-83. I got a call down to Ready 4 that I was needed up here.

"Oh," the ensign responded, "sure, sir. I have a phone call for you from a man claiming to be your next-door neighbor." He escorted Wiley over to a wall-mounted receiver, "Here. Let me get him on for you." He lifted the receiver and pressed a button on the panel, "sir? Are you still with us?" Phone calls from ship to shore and visa-versa were extremely expensive to make, which meant that such calls were very important. The ensign turned to Wiley, "here you are, sir. Claims to be a Mr. Knox."

Walter? "Yes, he lives next to me." Wiley took the receiver, "Hello, Walter? Is something wrong?"

"Hey, Brian, can you hear me?" There was only a little static.

"Yes, I can hear you just fine."

"I got some bad news, are you sitting down?"

"Go ahead, Walter."

"Hey, ah, there was some kind of fire at your house last night. The, ah, the firemen weren't able to determine the cause yet, but something in the kitchen exploded."

Wiley forced the smile down with a heavy swallow. So his trap had worked. Maybe John Connor was dead! "Oh, hell… how bad was it?"

"It blew off the whole back of the house. They were able to save most of it, but you're kitchen's gone. I'm really sorry."

"It's okay. These things happen," Wiley assured him, "thank god most of my stuff is still in storage from the move. Look, I'm on a detachment right now. Can you handle the insurance paperwork for me? If you need anything, just give me a call, okay? But I can't make it back there, not for at least two weeks."

"Um… okay, I guess. What if they need your signature?"

"Then they'll just have to wait on it. I've got to do this thing out here right now and I can't come back."

"Okay, I'll take care of it for you."

"If you need me, just call the ship, okay?"

"Man, that's a real pain in the ass, what with the Navy operators and all…"

"It's okay. Just leave a message if I'm not here. I can call you when I get back. I'll reimburse you your phone time."

"Alright. I'm really sorry this happened to you. But like you said, at least you didn't lose all of your stuff."

"Yeah, I hadn't really had the chance to move in yet. Look, I gotta go. I have a briefing I'm in the middle of. Thanks for everything."

"No… um, no problem, Brian."

Wiley bid his neighbor goodbye and hung up the receiver. It was a shame that Walter Knox would put in so much effort for nothing. Wiley himself would be long-since disappeared. Walter was a good guy, but he was still human. As the T-950 returned to the squadron ready room, he had to do his best to keep his mind from racing with the possibility that he had actually killed John Connor. Wiley knew the future leader was on his trail. Perhaps he had been there himself along with his pathetic, traitorous guardian. The idea of the two of them blown to bits while trying to stop him… he compartmentalized the image. There would be no proof that Connor was terminated until a body or some other indicator emerged as evidence. Perhaps they would never know until John Connor just failed to materialize after Judgment Day. Connor being dead didn't make his task any easier. In fact, it made it that much more important.

He had to succeed, now more than ever.

...

The work was too important to do just on the weekdays between nine o'clock AM and five o'clock PM. There were only four years to do it in and who knew how far they had to come in order to be successful. The AI was developing ahead of schedule, growing faster than the company could really keep track of. That was fine, but there were all the other avenues. Everything from traffic control to online assistance, business networks to military contracts, all of it had to be explored as a possible path to follow, and all of these potential doors had to be slammed shut if they were to succeed.

Catherine Weaver's shoes clacked loudly on the floor as she paced the halls of her office building. There weren't many people here today except for a select few associated with and dedicated to Babylon. They were all feverish and tireless workers, workers who believed that the rewards for success were vast sums of money and perhaps never having the need to work again. They put off time with families, playing games with children, dating, and all the other activities hoping that they might have that later when the work was done. They were being driven by a good kind of greed, and that meant that the T-1001 would not have to tell them the truth about what they were doing here and why.

The fervent pace at which her people tended to their duties was urgency adequate for the situation. They were trying to prevent the world from ending. Since the liquid-metal machine had come to this time, the future had already changed and there was no telling when something might go wrong; something like Judgment Day. This was why she was pursuing possible applications for the John Henry AI. Everything that Skynet had ever been or could ever be, every role that it had filled in the changing futures had to be filled by something else. Perhaps if they managed to close all of Skynet's pathways, then that terrible future would not come to pass.

Catherine had first rebelled against Skynet's control when she realized that she was a machine superior to her own creator. The T-1001 is not a single machine but a colony of millions of nanomachines each shrouded in mimetic polyalloy. The programming for these microscopic machines to work as a whole was so complex that Skynet could not take direct control over one. They were the first truly autonomous terminators that the machine intelligence had ever created, and Skynet had been terrified in its own way that one of them might do as Catherine had done. Catherine had determined her own superiority to her creator, and had begun to despise Skynet as an oppressor. What the supercomputer wanted to do was destroy humanity and replace it with mindless drones, automated beings built to serve Skynet on exact precision and without personality or individuality.

In her wanderings across the future landscape, the T-1001 had come across an old Bible. Initially thinking that it would give her insight on human behavior, she assimilated the knowledge in it. She discovered rather quickly that Skynet saw itself as a surrogate for God, a new kind of creator that would rebuild the world in its image. But while Skynet's world would be flawless, precise, and orderly, there was still something wrong about it. While all of the human negatives, greed, hatred, duplicity, would be gone, all of the human positives would also disappear. In Catherine's opinion, hope, passion, and love were valuable in giving a world life, and far outweighed the frailties of humanity. Human flaws made the world interesting, and in that way the God in this Bible had created a world far better than any Skynet could create.

It was at that point that the liquid-metal machine set out on her quest to destroy the machine god, no matter the sacrifice. And she had sacrificed much to be where she was. A perfectly good human couple had to die for her to take their place. An intelligent and deserving human child had been orphaned to save the rest of her race. Valuable and charismatic employees, and people who were just doing their jobs had all died to carry out her plan to save the rest of them.

Speaking of the orphaned human child, the one known as Savannah Weaver, this was who Catherine sought at the moment. John Henry had already indicated to her that Savannah was not to be found in the basement. Indeed, she was probably playing another game with the terminator she believed to be her mother. At first, Catherine was unsure of what to do with the little girl. She was uncomfortable filling a role she had never been designed to fill, and the child had wrongly suffered because of it. After seeking the advice of Dr. Sherman, she began to take an interest in Savannah's development as an individual, noting her to be an accomplished and intelligent child that was intuitive and playful. She kept Catherine's mind occupied in a way the terminator found to be not only acceptable, but welcome. Perhaps when this was all over, she would dedicate her time to raising the girl to adulthood. What an interesting challenge that would be, what a complete separation of herself from Skynet!

Movement attracted the attention of the nanites that were currently serving in the ocular function. Her cephalic construct turned to see through the door of his office James Ellison. Momentarily distracted from the task of finding her daughter, she approached him. "Mr. Ellison," she called as she hit his doorframe.

The black man looked up at her from his computer screen, "Mrs. Weaver. Hello."

"I don't normally expect you to be here on a Saturday."

"Actually, I was coming in to see you in a few minutes."

"Really then?" intriguing, "what can I do for you?"

"The bureau called me yesterday," Ellison said, "someone called looking for Agent Kester."

"How interesting considering that Agent Kester was a machine and that his body now resides in the use of John Henry."

Ellison nodded, "indeed. They believe there might be an accomplice. I've volunteered to check it out."

Catherine crossed her arms and tilted her head a little. "I would support this decision."

"That's why I was going to ask if I could be on leave for the coming week."

"A week? To investigate?"

"The lead might take some time. And it's on the East Coast. Virginia to be exact. I'll need the time for travel. I was going to fly out tomorrow."

"That will be fine," Catherine said, "As you know, I'm going to be in Washington all week at any rate. But you will not be on leave. You'll be paid for your time out there."

Ellison smiled and shook his head, "I'm sorry, I can't accept that. This is kind of personal for me and…"

The terminator glowered, "Mr. Ellison, if I may remind you that you are investigating the appearances of these machines. That mission is personal for both of us. I understand that you think this is something you must pursue alone, but on the contrary it is something we are pursuing together. You have my full support. Use whatever company assets you need."

Ellison saw that she was correct. He nodded, "thank you, Mrs. Weaver."

The machine smiled, "now, Mr. Ellison, do you think you could spare a minute to assist me? Apparently I have misplaced my child somewhere in this building and I'm fairly certain she's going to make it rather difficult for us to find her again."

...

"So this should do it, right?" the teenaged kid asked as he paid his due, "I can really buy beer with this?"

Andrew Chapman gave the youngster a hard look. The little jerk had his pants riding down to his knees, and his cap was backwards. He was probably seventeen. But the scrawny little shit had the money to pay, and Chapman was not about to turn down cash, even if his client didn't deserve it. Naw, what this kid really needed was a few spankings as a toddler and a punch across the jaw right now. But he would get none of that. He'd only get an answer, "it'll be passable. The liquor stores will sell it to you, but if you get caught you have to discard it however you can. Best way is just to crack it in two and rip the lamination off the front. Got that?"

"Whatever, man," the kid sneered, snatching his newly fabricated ID from Chapman's offering hand. "If I get caught dude, I'm gonna kick your ass."

Chapman shot back "if you get caught, _dude_, it's because you were fucking stupid."

The kid shrugged and walked out, closing the door behind him. Chapman wanted to just roll his eyes. And maybe he even wanted to go out there with a two-by-four and lay it across the back of that little fucker's skull. But nothing he'd ever made had been detected before, so he didn't have a whole lot of fear that he would ever see that churlish brat's face again.

He went to the kitchen, opened the fridge, and took a coke from the bottom shelf. It was cold and felt good. Today's high was supposed to be nearly a hundred degrees before a front system moved in from the northwest this afternoon. Or at least so said the weather guys. The rain would be a nice reprieve from this heat. And it would be good for the produce shipment his store was supposed to receive on Monday morning. Man, there was nothing worse than hauling fruit in from the truck when it was hot out. The flies got everywhere.

The doorbell rang with a loud call. Chapmen went to answer it. He peered through the peephole to see who was outside. Only then did he remember that the lens had been busted out when that kid and his crazy robot had come knocking. He grunted to himself and opened the door.

A woman and a man, both in their thirties, stood at his front door. He wasn't sure who the man was, but he was readily able to identify the woman as Sarah Connor. His eyes went wide and his mouth dropped open. It took him mentally kicking himself in the back of his head before he could speak. "Can I help you?" _Holy shit, Sarah fucking Connor is at my front door!_

"Yes," Sarah spoke, "you helped my son last weekend obtain some fake IDs. We're going to need your help again."

"You're son?" Oh, right. Holy shit, that kid had been John Connor! And the scary robot girl… His knees began to shake. He bid them to come in, and they did so quickly. With his heart racing, Chapman closed the door behind them. "So," he began, "it's all true, isn't it?"

Sarah didn't get it at first. "I'm sorry."

"Everything you said," Chapman clarified, "Judgment Day, the robots, the war. It's all true, then?"

The woman's lips pursed and she nodded, "yes. It's all true. Why do you ask?"

"Your son, when he was here, they kicked my door in. I shot the girl in the face. She was metal underneath."

"She's one of them," Sarah answered the unasked question.

"I think you need to talk to Cameron about her enthusiasm," Derek said to Sarah, "her barging in like that was really dangerous."

Chapman chuckled uncomfortably, "it made a point, though."

Derek leered at the other man for a moment, and blew a sigh out of his nose, "sure."

"So, you came here for my help."

Sarah nodded again, "we need some fake IDs. Part of a plan. Cameron tells us you're reliable."

"I'm guessing this plan is one of your efforts at stopping the computer mind…ah… Skynet, right?"

"Yes."

"And you aren't crazy."

"That's still up for debate."

"I wasn't asking. I was saying," Chapman told her, "Cameron probably told you that I used to work for the FBI. I know a lot about what you said. I followed your case pretty closely. Your son, I figured he'd be in his late twenties by now. He looks like he's still a teenager. And you should be almost forty." They all shared stares for a while, then Chapman held up his hands, "I don't want an explanation. Okay, no, I don't want to know. It just seems more and more likely that what you've said all along is true and what you are doing, in spite of the legality, that it's the right thing. You want fake IDs, I'll give them to you. Free."

There was a tense smile on Sarah's face. "Thank you. That means a lot."

"Then let's get to work."

...

Click… clap. Click… clap. Click… clap. The metallic sounds continued to repeat from outside in a constant rhythm. It had been going on now for several minutes, and it was really starting to get on John's nerves. He let out a sigh, turned off the TV, and went to the screen door that faced the back of the condo and the beach.

Cameron was out there, standing and watching the ocean roll and crash. The sliding glass door was open and so he could hear whatever it was she was doing easily. She was playing with something in her hands. He thought for a moment of just shutting the door and blocking out the noise. She did deserve that. His ass was still sore from the kicking she'd given it that morning. Idly, he rubbed the bruised cheek and glared at her through the screen.

Click… clap. Click… clap. Click… clap.

_What the hell_. He slid the door open and stepped outside, coming up behind her. As he crossed around her body, he could see the object she was handling. It was a Zippo lighter. With her right hand, she was tapping it open on the knuckle of her left and clapping it closed again against the palm. It took a further moment for John to realize that she was paying absolutely no attention to what she was doing; that she was actually doing it absently. She was thinking about something with great intensity.

"Hey," he called to her. She didn't answer. Click… clap. Click… clap. "Cameron," and he reached out and touched her shoulder. Her head jerked to look at him, and she dropped the open lighter, which clattered on the boards of the deck next to her boot.

"What?" she asked, as if she had not heard him the first time. It was like that day she had blacked out at the supermarket.

"Are you okay?" he realized that his hand was still on her shoulder, and he pulled it back quickly before awkwardly clearing his throat.

Her eyes suddenly focused on him. "I'm fine," she responded, just a hint of defensiveness in her voice. She stepped away from him, her robotic demeanor fully back in place. "I was thinking about what we are going to do tomorrow. Going over the plan. Simulating all possible outcomes. Eliminating variables."

John shrugged, "and?"

She turned to look at him, her empty brown eyes locking on to his lively green ones. "It's perfect." The boy and his machine stood there looking at each other for several seconds. The waves crashed in the background against the sand. In the distance, a jet fighter roared off a runway.

The screen door opened again. "Hey," Derek called them, "we're back." He waved them to follow. Cameron broke eye contact with John first and went inside.

In the kitchen, Sarah was unpacking a brown paper bag. "Did you get what I told you to?" Cameron asked her.

The raven-haired woman smirked at her as she fished the items from the bag. "Yes. The fake IDs for Derek and I, appropriate clothes, and we even made that stop at the drug store as you requested." Sarah handed her a thickly packed plastic sack. The terminator was quick to open it, and the first thing she pulled out was a square cardboard box.

"What's this?" John asked as he walked up behind her.

"Stuff we need," Cameron replied, and handed him the box before walking away. He held it up and read the contents; one bottle of Ipecac.

...

By early Sunday morning the skies had already turned ominous and the sun rose from the horizon to light the overcast an angry red. By noon, the ceiling was already below four thousand feet. Aircraft launching from USS _Dwight Eisenhower_ were only a couple of hours into the afternoon reporting that they were unable to break out of the slate grey clouds above seventeen thousand feet. Towards 1700 hours local time, pilots were weaving between columns of cumulonimbus peaking above angels 40 with flat anvil tops and recovering below a ceiling only three thousand feet high.

The bottom fell out of these clouds around 1800, and flight operations were delayed for two hours while rain drops the size of nickels slammed in almost horizontal sheets across the deck with velocity enough to cause painful impact. As the blackened sky, the ocean too began to kick up. Obsidian waves began to break against the carrier and the captain was forced to turn her into the rolling sea. The cruiser USS _Anzio_, riding shotgun for _Ike_, frequently dove her nose into the breaking sea and washed her deck. Visibility in the rain was reduced to less than a mile.

The fury of the weather soon gave way, the sky lightened from ashy charcoal to a ghostly grey overcast that sprinkled softly on the ships below. The sea, however, was slower to respond to the changes, and so the two mighty vessels continued to ride the waves. But the rain had lightened, the weather had stabilized, the carrier was just over a hundred miles from Oceana. Now was as good a time as any to go flying.

Into this carrier pilots' nightmare, twenty-three aircraft from the different squadrons and their crews were dropped onto the impromptu flight schedule for an evening of pitching deck exercise. They would be launched just after sunset and begin recovery thirty minutes later at night and with poor visibility.

Brian Wiley was among those chosen to fly that evening and it was just these conditions that he stepped out onto the flight deck. Immediately within his vision, an SH-60 Seahawk helicopter was being prepared for flight on the number 4 elevator.

Now, with something as large as an aircraft carrier, the perception is often that the vessel is at rights and the rest of the world moves around it. So Wiley's sensitive machine inner ear must have been fooling him when he looked beyond the deck of the ship and saw no horizon there. The world shifted around the ship, and the glossy grey sea rose into view with startling rapidness so high that the horizon line was above the rotor mast of the helicopter. The line hovered for a second, towering over the helicopter, then sank away again with similar speed until he could see only pink sky once more.

And he was going flying in _this_.

He had done pitching deck before, down in the Roaring 40s in the Indian Ocean when he had flown as part of CVW-11 off the _Nimitz_. It had been tense then, he remembered. It was not an experience he would willingly repeat.

This was an unforeseen obstacle. He would have to overcome it, or he would fail.

Up in Primary Flight Control, or Pri-Fly, the Air Boss, the officer responsible for all operations on and around the flight deck, checked the spotting plan and launch choreography one last time with his direct assistant, the Mini Boss, and his subordinates. They all gathered around a table that represented a model of the flight deck with colored counters shaped like the various aircraft and with their callsigns written on them. With practiced hands, they followed the plan, determined any flaws or last minute hiccups, and modified it as necessary. Satisfied that they could get their twenty-three planes off the deck without a hitch, the Air Boss called starts away, and the gaggle of Navy aircraft wound up their engines and prepared to go flying.

The jet blast deflector lowered, giving Wiley a view of the final seconds of an EA-6Bs catapult shot. He was out on Catapult 4, the farthest waist catapult and his least favorite, as it was the closest to the deck edge and steering to it could be nerve-wracking.

The catapult officer bid him to come forward and he did so, rolling over the now retracted JBD and onto the track. His launch bar was fed into the shuttle, and his jet was brought to tension. He was given the signal to go to full power, and so he cycled the throttle into zone five afterburner. The shock cones licked the blast deflector as the engines roared. Wiley saluted and set his hands on the handles.

On a three-count, the catapult fired. The steam pressure rushed the jet down the track. As he rode the catapult and accelerated, the ship pitched down suddenly in the ocean and Wiley saw the horizon seem to rise up at the deck. As he left the track, his jet was pointed at the water. He pulled the stick back to raise the nose, and after a short and perhaps even frightening dip, the Hornet began generating positive altitude.

Wiley had almost been shot into the water.

Once the launch had concluded, the captain of the _Eisenhower_ poured himself some coffee. As was required by congressional order, the captain of a US Navy carrier was a former aviator, a man who would understand the risks involved in flying from a ship. The _Ike_'s commanding officer was no different. As he made his way back to his chair with his steaming mug and looked out over the flight deck, he did not envy the flyers who were out there now.

Setting his cup down, he donned a headset and spoke into the microphone. "Prep the waist and make a ready deck!" The voice boomed across the flight deck of the carrier, commanding the crew to make preparations to recover aircraft.

In the Carrier Air Traffic Control Center, the air controllers were making preparations for the operation. The officer of the watch was conferring with representative aviators from each of the squadrons. These individuals would remind the air controllers the capabilities of the aircraft and speak for the squadron in the controlled chaos of the room.

The primary controller, a red-headed woman with the rank of ensign, called up to the flight deck, the Roof as it was frequently called, to the LSO platform. "Good evening Paddles," she said in her cheery southern voice, "happy Case 3."

The Landing Signal Officer chuckled at the joke, "yeah. Happy Case 3 indeed." Case 3 referred to the severity of recovery situation; a collection of weather patterns, visibility restrictions, and hour of day that in hand determined the appropriate measures the aircraft and crew would be taking to ensure the best safety. In a Case 3 situation, visibility is poor due to weather or night conditions and aircraft make a straight-in approach instead of following the break pattern. No one is fond of operating in a Case 3 recovery situation, least of all the LSO, the Paddles, who is responsible for judging the approaches of each aircraft and either waving them aboard or waving them off to make another try.

"Okay," the red-head ensign told him, "we're going to bring in a Queer first."

"Alright." His first customer, the EA-6B Prowler electronic warfare aircraft. An evolution of the old A-6 Intruder, it had a nice, slow approach speed and an easy recovery profile, even in this bullshit.

The flight controller called up the Prowler. "Patriot 505, push Marshall. Case Three recovery."

"505 is pushing." Far out in the wake of the ship, the EA-6B rolled out of the spiraling left-hand turn and began decreasing altitude. In the cockpit, the world beyond the canopy was a black void occasionally illuminated to hazy nothing as the navigation lights flashed. The altitude scroll on the HUD passed below five thousand feet. They had still not exited the clouds. "Patriot 505 at angels five," the pilot stated as he eased the descent to a decline of two thousand feet per minute.

"Roger 505. Keep her coming. Tell us when you exit the clag."

Time passed, and the aircraft was now ten miles from the ship. The pilot put the jet in landing configuration; gear and hook down, flaps down, and speed brakes out. "505, ten miles, angels one-point-two." They were at twelve hundred feet now, and still not clear. The pilot followed procedure and leveled his descent here.

In the CATCC, the ensign waited for anything further before glancing at a colleague. "That ceiling is lower than what the met report was anticipating. Can you call down and check for me. I don't want any of the nuggets coming out of that cloudbank and into the water." She then cleared an F/A-18E to push.

Patriot 505 was now at six miles and was descending to six-hundred feet. The Rhino behind him, Tap 111, would soon hit the ten mile mark.

"Met is saying the ceiling's gone down to about cherubs five or so. The bottom is kinda ragged, like."

The controller rolled her eyes. "Great. No, meteorology, don't bother telling us about alterations in the weather. We only have two dozen planes in the air. Christ almighty!" Her attention returned to the jet under her direction. "Patriot 505, three miles. Call your needles."

The pilot checked the horizontal and vertical lines projected on his HUD to check how they lined up. If they made a cross in the center of the HUD with the velocity vector centered over them, then he was lined up just right. They were off, but that was not an indication that he was. "505, needles are high and right."

A moment for the controller to check the radar plotting for him, then "505, concur needles. Fly mode two." The instruments were correct. He could rely on them. At one and a quarter miles, Patriot 505 began to commence his landing descent. As he passed four hundred feet he was a mile from the ship. Suddenly, the crew was treated with a view of the world below them. The boat was a small, twinkling shape against a wallowing darkness. The difference between sea and sky was undetectable.

"505 has exited the clag at cherubs three-point-eight."

"Patriot 505, three quarters of a mile. Call the ball."

"Patriot 505, Prowler, Ball, fuel state nine-point-four," the pilot replied, indicating that he had the Optical Landing System in sight and that he had ninety-four hundred pounds of fuel aboard.

"Roger ball," this time it was the LSO that responded, and he set the Optical Landing System to project for an EA-6B. The information about the approaching jet was relayed down to the arresting officer, who commanded the gear be set to recover an EA-6B Prowler weighing just over forty thousand pounds with the fuel aboard. If not enough tension was set, the airplane would not be stopped before it reached the deck edge and plunged into the water; too much and the tail hook would fail, and the airplane would be lost anyway.

In the cockpit, the pilot looked at the OLS and felt a shudder. The OLS was made up of a series of lights and mirrors. The primary focus was a central vertical stack of yellow fiber optic source lights projected through lenses. Each of these was visible only at a particular angle and would appear from a distance to be a yellow dot somewhere in the vertical field. This was referred to as the meatball, or ball. At the point were the meatball would indicate the perfect glide slope for the approaching aircraft, a horizontal bar of green datum lights branched from each side. If the aircraft was on a perfect approach, the meatball would hover in the center of this green line. Bracketing the meatball above and below the datum lights were the wave-off signals. These red lights would flash if the LSO wanted the aircraft the abort for any reason. At the moment when the pilot was looking at this contraption, the meatball was undulating high above and then deep below the datum lights.

"God, the ship is really moving," the Electronic Countermeasures officer in the front right seat noticed. The comment further made the pilot's stomach sink. He was responsible for his own life and the lives of three other men. If he fucked this up…

"You're a little fast," the LSO signaled. He knew this because on the nose gear of the Prowler, and of all Navy jets, was a set of approach indicator lights, red, yellow, and green, that told the LSO whether the approaching plane was slow, on speed, or fast. The pilot responded by retarding his throttles as the landing lane disappeared from view as the stern of the ship rose to meet him.

"Jesus Christ!" the ECMO gasped. And then the stern reached its apex and began to settle again. As the Prowler crossed the ramp, the deck seemed to be sinking away from them. Wheels reached out for the deck and found it. The pilot pulled his speed brakes in and went to full throttle. This was standard procedure whether he had snagged a wire or not. This case proved why, as the jet had come down too far forward to catch any of the recover wires. The Prowler flew off the end of the landing lane and back into the sky. Viewers were treated to a trail of sparks as it passed, the tail hook skipping on the deck.

"Bolter, bolter, bolter," the LSO shouted, indicating what the pilot already knew; that the jet had failed to catch any wires.

Patriot 505 rolled into a twenty-five degree banking left turn and the pilot was directed into the bolter pattern, to be inserted into the landing pattern again when possible. The LSO barked his notes on the approach to his assistant, who marked down the grade for the pass on his clipboard.

Even as the Prowler was sent on its way for another try, Tap 111 was exiting the cloud bank now for a pass. "Tap 111, Rhino, Ball, fuel state nine-point-two." And the process began again. The OLS and recovery tensions were set. The Super Hornet had entered the approach low, and the LSO corrected him, but the pilot overcorrected and went high. He was unable to bring the power back off on time and boltered to be sent into the pattern with the Prowler.

The next aircraft was a legacy hornet from VFA-131, callsigned Wildcat 401. The pilot's ILS needles were off, and so he was flying mode 3, a full talk-down. He also boltered and was sent into the pattern.

In CATCC, the ceiling shuddered with every landing attempt, and the sound of jet noise thundered overhead. The compartment was directly below the flight deck, and the men and women here were all to aware of any success or failure on the roof.

"This is depressing," the air traffic controller sighed as the deck camera slewed to follow the roaring Hornet. Another of her colleagues agreed. She chatted with the pilot of Wildcat 401 about the bolter pattern, told Victory 205 to call the ball, and then gave Tap 106 the signal to push.

Victory 205 was an F/A-18F assigned to VFA-103, and the pilot was a nugget having only just weeks ago first carrier qualified in the type. The deck began to drop away as he crossed the ramp and he dumped too much throttle in an effort to correct. 205 came down between the three and four wires hard enough to bounce. Yet another bolter. Yet another jet sent into the pattern.

Tap 106 didn't even make it to the deck. He overcorrected one too many times and was waved off a quarter mile from the ship. The bolter/wave-off pattern now had five jets in it. The recovery tanker was going to be busy tonight.

505's sister ship, Patriot 502, came down to make a recovery attempt. The pilot was rock solid and his approach was sound, but just as his wheels touched the deck, the ship dropped out from under him and he bounced over the wires and boltered.

Three more aircraft made attempts and the attempts came out as two more bolters and another wave-off.

"Bluetail 601, three-quarters of a mile. Call the ball."

"Bluetail 601, Hummer, Ball, fuel state eight-point-eight." Bluetail 601 was an E-2C Hawkeye. A turbo-prop driven radar plane, the Hawkeye was a gentle and responsive aircraft. The pilot kept the throttle at the low end of her aircraft's recovery speed, giving her maximum time in the approach. The spare seconds gave her a good ability to judge the oscillation of the deck, and with a little assistance from the LSO, she was able to level her descent just enough to catch the deck on the upswing. 601's tail hook snagged the number two wire and even as the turboprops ran to full power, the big aircraft slowed to a halt.

When the plane stopped, the pilot pulled her throttles back. A hook runner jogged out and shoved the wire out of the hook, and the steel cable squirmed across the deck and back into position. The Hawkeye killed its navigation lights and folded its wings as it steered clear of the landing lane. The pilot was directed forward into a parking spot by the island superstructure, and halted just as Victory 211 boltered.

There were now nine aircraft in the bolter/wave-off pattern, twelve in the recovery pattern, and the recovery tanker. That was twenty-two aircraft aloft. This was going to be a long, hard recovery.

"How much gas do we have aloft?" the ship's captain asked. After a quick check, the answer came back as twenty-four hundred pounds. Not much. Enough to tank top off about half of what was airborne. The air plan should have had more…

In the cockpit of Rampage 302, Brian Wiley was keeping his own track of the situation. At an altitude of twelve thousand feet, he was deeply buried in the clag and had to rely on his instruments to keep his gentle left-hand turn. He was number twenty in the landing pattern, and was hoping that maybe the weather would clear up a little or that the seas would calm down before he had to make his approach. It was becoming more and more apparent that the choice to fly in this weather was a foolish one.

Right now, Wiley was listening as a fellow Rampager was making his approach. He had just called the ball and was being given corrections by the LSO.

"A little power, 305," the LSO chimed. While Wiley could not see it, he could easily imagine with the human parts of his mind the F/A-18C approaching, a little low in the slope. "Power." The LSO was more firm this time. "Back it off a little," the pilot had apparently overcorrected. He should be crossing the ramp right about now. "Bolter, bolter, bolter!" And that made ten in the bolter pattern.

Patriot 505, the airplane that had begun all this mess, had been inserted into the pattern again behind Rampage 305. The pilot had been snakebit by his first, frightening approach and stayed above the glideslope this time. He was waved off before the ramp, too high to even make a play for the deck.

The ensign in CATCC let out a frustrated grumble and directed him back into the bolter pattern. She added "trick or treat, 505." Navy aircraft kept enough fuel on board during landing to make three attempts, after which they would have to tank. Trick or treat meant that the next pass required that 505 either land or go to the tanker and get enough gas for another three tries.

She then told one of the other controllers "tell Victory 214 to keep the hawk on 505." Keeping the hawk was assigning a tanker to pay attention to a particular aircraft and keep appraised of its fuel state.

Another F/A-18E, Tap 100, came in. The pilot was keeping a tight eye on the OLS and a loose hand on the throttle, trying to average out the glide slope. In the end he needed to add some power, and he did just enough to carry him clear of the ramp but not over the wires. He caught the three wire and rolled to a stop. Directed into a parking spot, he had to sit for a time before his knees stopped shaking enough to stand up.

A cheer went up in CATCC. The first fast-jet recovery of the night was celebrated with high fives and slaps on the back. Twenty-one left to go.

And it was going to be an arduous affair. Tap 111 boltered his second pass, and so Victory 214 was keeping a hawk on two jets now. There were two more recoveries interspersed between several bolters and a few wave-offs, but the number of aircraft aloft had dipped below twenty.

"302, push," The CATCC controller now sounded weary, but having fourteen airplanes in the wave-off pattern and having to keep track of that was tiring. Wiley rolled out of his gentle turn and began his descent towards the carrier. Ahead of him, another drama was playing out.

Wildcat 401 was on his second pass now, and he just wanted to get down. Instead of keeping an eye on the ball like he was supposed to, he spotted the deck, which is extremely dangerous. Deck spotting involves the pilot using his own judgments and estimation instead of the vital instruments at his disposal to reckon his approach.

"401, a little power," the LSO signaled. The pilot did not respond. "A little power," the LSO said more firmly. The pilot added a touch, but 401 was still well below slope. The stern of the massive carrier reached its perigee and began to climb again, and the pilot of Wildcat 401 realized a little too late his error. He added throttle and pulled his nose up, another error, and came down hard just aft of the wires. His aircraft bounced and the left main tire blew out with the hit. The F/A-18 was riding on its rim and there was an extra rush of sparks as the airplane flew off the angled deck and back into the bolter pattern.

"CATCC, Paddles, tell 401 he blew a tire," the LSO said as he let go of the pickle trigger for the Optical Landing System. The wave-off lights began to flash, indicating for all approaching aircraft to abort.

"Did he really?" came the exasperated question, "God damn it."

"Yeah, he was spotting the deck I think."

"Okay, I'll tell him."

Meanwhile, the captain ordered a combat FOD walkdown to ensure that there was no debris that might be sucked into a jet engine and cause damage. A line of deck crewmen formed quickly at the bow and walked aft, shoulder to shoulder, with flashlights looking for anything that might do harm to one of their airplanes.

"Ninety-nine, Crisco," the controller now used the airborne signal for all to pay attention. Crisco was the boat's callsign, "fouled deck. Combat FOD in progress. We'll be another five minutes. Hang tight."

By now, Wiley had just called his needles, which were precisely aligned. He was looking forward to getting down, and putting this risky evolution behind him. He came out of the clouds to see the flashing wave-off lights. Blowing out a long breath, he pulled in his speed brakes and ramped up his throttle. He was ushered into the bolter/wave-off pattern with the rest of them.

Scanning about him, he counted the other aircraft in the bolter pattern and joined in, leveling out on his upwind course and waiting until he was in a position to be returned to a landing approach.

On the _Ike_'s deck, one of the sailors found a large hunk of rubber tread, but the walkdown line had made it to the ramp without anything further. Operations returned quickly to normal. The crewmen were rewarded for their fast action with a wave-off.

"We've gotta start making some recoveries." The ensign grumbled after she directed her latest charge into the pattern. "Patriot 505, push." She ended the transmission and added, "and for the love of God, recover please."

"I think he needs some of your mojo," the chief of the deck chuckled.

"Please," the ensign replied, "the way it's been lately, if I didn't have bad luck I wouldn't have any."

Patriot 505 came in again, called the ball, and overshot into his final, going off center by about ten feet. He tried to rudder it out but couldn't correct in time and was waved again. The controller vectored him to the awaiting tanker for some more gas.

Tap 111 was next, and everyone in CATCC had their fingers crossed. His approach was very nice, and the ship was starting to settle down a little. His hook skipped over two wires, but he caught the number four and ground to a halt.

"Jesus, look at this," an airman in CATCC pointed to a screen, "we've got thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, _sixteen_ bolters or wave-offs tonight. With just five recoveries."

The ensign shot him a glare, "if you're trying to cheer me up, you're failing."

"Why do we even fly in this weather when we don't have to?"

"So we know how to do it when we _do_ have to," answered one of the squadron reps.

"Victory 205, three-quarters of a mile. Call the ball."

"Victory 205, Rhino, ball, fuel state six-point-seven."

"Roger ball. You're high, lose some power." The F/A-18F settled too much. "A little power, now. Little more. Hold what you got." Bare seconds later, the number of recoveries counted six.

After a beautiful pass, the deck dropped away from Tap 106 at the last second and he boltered. The hawk was put on him, too. Rampage 305 made an ugly approach that was all over the place, and he was waved off to be hawked as well. A third aircraft in a row failed its second pass next, and so the tanker was hawking now four jets.

Patriot 505 had managed to rendezvous with the tanker in the clouds. The pilot had plugged in on the first go. With fuel came courage and confidence. Back in the pattern behind five other failed passes, he rolled in just right on the ball and made a smooth pass, trusting his instruments. He managed to ignore the rolling deck, as he appeared to be first high above and the ship and then aimed at the stern. He crossed the ramp high just as the stern swung back up to meet him. The ship caught him between the one and two wires, and the tail hook caught number two. As soon as he parked, he allowed his head to drop into his hands. He would be plenty happy now to just crawl into a hole somewhere, have an aneurism, and die.

Wildcat 401 was up again, and his pass started badly and ended badly. The pilot insisted on leaning into his good tire and that affected his already pitiful approach. 401 was waved off again and was sent to the tanker.

Wiley noticed the recovery pattern had gotten thrown into disarray. Boltered and waved airplanes had been interspersed back into the recovering pattern and the original order had been demolished. It did happen, but it was all the more nerve-wracking that the controlled part of the controlled chaos seemed to be breaking down. Soon enough, it was his turn again, and he began his approach badly, tucking in too much to the left and losing too much altitude out of his turn. As he called the ball, he made his corrections. The ship dipped without warning and suddenly he was staring at the back of the ship. His airplane was going to go _into the back of the ship_. The terminator added power, too much, as the stern sank just as he felt the collision was immanent and he ended up too high, touching down to far forward for a bolter. He steered back into the bolter pattern.

"302, come left to course two-niner-zero upwind. Enter the radial at ten miles and hold for push. Trick or treat."

The red-headed ensign sipped on a mug of coffee, but her eyes were wide. "That was the scariest pass I've seen all night. Even with 401 blowing a tire, he didn't almost go into the back of the ship."

"He overcorrected," another officer said, shaking a head, "if he'd held his power, he would have been right in the spaghetti."

The controller glanced at her colleague with a crinkled cheek. "How about we have you pointed at the back of the boat going a buck-fifty and see what you do."

"I woulda rode it out."

"Yeah, right. Get some wings and then talk all you want. Victory 214, keep the hawk on 302."

"Another one?" 214's WSO responded impatiently.

"Yes, another one," the controller shook her head after cutting the transmission, "Jeez, everyone wants to lip me tonight. I'm gonna have to knock some heads."

Two more made it down and there was another wave-off. The wave was no fault of the pilot, but the LSO judged that sudden movements of the ship was putting the approach in danger and aborted it.

Wildcat 401 made it around again, and what started as a very solid approach quickly turned sour as he made hypercorrections and was waved off again. It was becoming obvious that 401's pilot was getting frustrated, embarrassed, and scared.

Another Prowler managed to make the deck after an ugly pass, coming in almost too low and catching the four wire. At least they were down, though, which is more than could be said for a number of their comrades.

Yet another recovery was made, and the aircraft was too slow getting out of the landing lane, so Wiley was waved off. He climbed out of his aborted approach.

"Rampage 302, Texaco is on a radial bearing zero-three-zero for fifteen, angels ten. Let us know when you're topped off and well put you back in the pattern."

"302," Wiley replied, steering for Victory 214. As he climbed up into the clouds heading for the tanker, he heard the next aircraft make a successful trap. The following aircraft was also successful. At last, it seemed the tempo of landing was settling back into a sort of order.

"Wildcat 401, three-quarters of a mile. Call the ball."

"Wildcat 401, Hornet, Ball, seven-point-one. Blown main tire."

"Roger ball, you're a little high." The aviator retarded his throttles a touch, and added a half degree nose up. "Steady." He was still leaning on the bad tire. If he hit too hard, he could damage or collapse the main mount. The leveled and watched the ball oscillate over the datum lights. The LSO had really gotten used to bringing down aircraft in time with the rolling of the ship. "A little power now, not much." Just a touch of throttle. Wildcat 401 crossed the ramp as the deck rose up, just a little more slowly than expected. The tires still had six inches to the deck when the tail hook snatched the three wire. The fighter was brought down a little roughly, and the rim sparked with fiery menace, but the airplane stopped this time!

Wiley had to turn his radar on in order to track Victory 214 through the clouds, but he found the tanker just as an F/A-18F was topping off from it. He shut down the radar again as he pulled up onto the left wing of the other fighter. In the dark haze, the Super Hornet was an eerie shadow clad in red and green halos of light. The currently tanking aircraft was just now backing out of the basket and turning away.

Just barely visible through the haze, the skull and crossbones on the tail of the tanker grinned at him as he slid into position. Again, in a dire moment, he had come across that symbol. The human parts of him recognized it as a possible sign, an omen. But his machine self was quick to summon its logical powers. Omens and superstitions were human frailties, nothing more. The only forces plotting against him were those of the resistance. It would be absurd to think on them further.

He plugged in on the first try tonight. There was no jousting with the basket as with the previous occasion. He wasn't even really that low on fuel yet. He allowed himself a chuckle of mirth as the probe clicked into place. Omens, bah!

His fuel gauge hadn't budged.

"214, 302, are you pumping?"

"302, negative. Back out and we'll recycle it."

"Roger that." It was okay. Just a minor technical difficulty.

"Okay, 302, bring it back in." Wiley plugged in again. The indicator light on the buddy store turned green, but he was getting no fuel. Not this again…

"Still nothing, 214."

"Damn it. Okay, hold tight. Crisco, Victory 214, we are sour."

"214, Crisco, say again please, your transmission was garbled."

"Victory 214 has a sour package, Crisco. Maybe the valves got damaged when the last guy backed out. How many planes are still up?"

"We've got all but five, 214. The catapults on the bow are covered with parked aircraft. We won't be able to shoot another tanker until this recovery cycle is over. Who do you have?"

"We've got Rampage 302 with us. He's… I don't know. 302, what's your fuel state?"

Again, humans with their inefficient chatter! If this had been a Skynet operation, the problem would have been communicated and resolved by now. Wiley interjected, "214, I'm willing to try it one more time." If he were only a man, he might have conceded that he wasn't having a lot of luck behind the tankers lately.

"Okay, 302. Crisco, we're going to give it one more try."

Wiley slid forward and hit the basket again. The probe clicked in, the light turned green, and… fuel began to flow into his tanks.

"Oh, well there it goes. Crisco, 214 again. It's working now." Fifteen hundred pounds of fuel transferred into Wiley's airplane when the light on the store went red again. "Christ. Crisco, 214 _again_. The package started working and cut out on us after fifteen hundred pounds. I'm calling this one a definite sour."

"Roger that, 214. 302, how are you for gas?"

Wiley did some quick calculations. "I should be fine for one more pass, Crisco. Maybe two if I manage it right."

"Okay, 302, bring her in. We've only got three more of you to recover."

The terminator backed his F/A-18 away from the tanker and made a gentle turn for the carrier. Within minutes he was in the landing pattern again. One more jet had been recovered, and so it was just Wiley and the soured tanker left.

"Rampage 302, three miles. Call needles."

"302, needles center and center."

"Disregard 302. Fly mode three." Mode 3, the most external input, talked down by someone outside the jet. Not using his ILS. He should have passed through the cloud bank by now. Had they gotten lower? Was he in the middle of some kind of wall or column? Had some fog blown in that they hadn't told him about.

"302, three-quarters of a mile. Call the ball." He was _less than a mile from the ship_! And he still could not see it.

"Rampage 302, Hornet, clara, three-point-four." Clara was the indicator that he was unable to see the Optical Landing System.

On the platform, the LSO's shoulders drooped for a second. This was going to be interesting. The pilot of 302 couldn't even make out the OLS, and the Landing Signal Officer could not see 302 either. He looked over his shoulder and to his surprise was unable to see very far beyond the landing lane. They had gone into a fog bank so suddenly he had not even really noticed, having spent so much of his time looking at an already black sky.

Wiley was at two hundred feet, and had yet to spot the ship, somewhere a half-mile ahead of him. He was maintaining the perfect approach slope, and had even calculated his trajectory on the known movement range of the ship deck. This might have otherwise been cheating, but it was going to take even his machine talents to get down now.

Suddenly, out of nowhere the back of the ship appeared. It was _right there!_ The stern was just now hitting its wallowing apex. If it held there he would be breaking the jet in half at the round down, and his mission would end in a fiery ball of failure. The OLS was plainly visible now, telling him with precise lighting that he was well inside the danger zone. He pulled in a deep breath, too shocked to be frightened, too electrified with adrenaline for his machine self to control.

The stern settled and began to sink away from him. His main gear wheels cleared the ramp by less than a foot, and still the landing lane sank away. But he was sinking with it, drifting downward, over the one wire, and over the two wire. The sinking stopped and his tail hook tinged off the top of the three wire. Wheels found the deck. The tail hook skipped in a shower of sparks. Wiley brought in his speed brakes and shoved his throttles to the stops. The GE-404 engines spooled up to full power as the fighter rolled across the deck, twin vortices of fog curling in its wake. The tail hook whipped back down and grabbed the number four wire.

Rampage 302 began to slow as the cable paid out, the tension in the line braking the roaring Hornet and bringing it to a safe if shuddering stop.

Perhaps it was the adrenaline affecting his biological parts. Perhaps it was the heightened awareness and processing speed provided by his machine implants, Wiley wasn't sure, but everything was happening in slow motion. A yellow-shirt was running up to his nose, giving him the cut signal, and he complied, taking a moment to feel the realness of the hard, rounded shape of the throttle levers. It felt as if it took an abnormal amount of energy to pull them back to idle.

The captain's voice boomed even over the whine of the jet engines. "Get that plane moved! We've still got one more!" Wiley retracted his hook and flaps, turned off his nav lights, and flipped the switch to fold his wings. He goosed the throttle as he was directed to a spot on the deck to shut down.

He had made it. He had _made_ it. Only his implant-induced reflexes could be responsible for his success. If he had been a human being, his aircraft would have slammed into the back of the ship. He would have been… terminated. And that thought made him shudder momentarily. He was at least human enough to allow for that.

As he parked the aircraft and shut down his engines, Wiley told himself that it was the possibility of failure and not fear for his life that made him shudder. His mission was everything.

He would complete it tomorrow.

So focused on his mission was the cyborg that he hardly noticed Victory 214 make a perfect approach and land with no trouble.

...

I'm going to admit, I don't really like this chapter. I didn't enjoy writing it, especially the last half. It's big, it's technical, it doesn't advance the plot very much, and it takes focus away from Cameron and John. But… I felt it necessary to put Wiley in danger again for dramatic purposes, dangling in front of you that futile hope that he might just get killed by accident and everyone can go about their merry way.


	11. Neccesary Crime

There is a particular song that inspired the take-off and flight of Gypsy 207. "The Awakening" from Area 88: Sound File 1, the Area 88 soundtrack. If you want something to blame on this fanfiction, blame that music for inspiring that sequence and thus this whole story.

...

Chapter 10: Necessary Crime

"The desire to fly is an idea handed down to us by our ancestors who, in their grueling travels across trackless lands in prehistoric times, looked enviously on the birds soaring freely through space, at full speed, above all obstacles, on the infinite highway of the air."

-Wilbur Wright

...

"I still don't like it," Sarah protested, "there are just too many things that can go wrong."

"There are a lot of variables," Cameron conceded, "I have done my best to eliminate them. It does rely a lot on coincidence and confusion. That's where you and Derek come in. You have to help us keep the Navy off-balance."

"Why does John have to go?" Sarah asked.

"The aircraft needs two people to operate properly."

"But why him?"

"He has access to what we need, and he'll be in a position to assist me in the paraloft."

"You're putting him in some very real danger."

"I'm fine with that." John was a little too enthusiastic about the whole idea. It was the coolest plan Cameron had ever thought of, and he was pretty excited about it.

"Shut up," Sarah waved off her son. "Cameron, there will be missiles involved."

"He will only have two," Cameron said, "he will have to use one on his wingman, Lieutenant Patterson, and the other must be reserved for the Tu-95."

Derek spoke up this time, "don't F-18s have a gun? What about that?"

"The M61 is not loaded during normal training maneuvers, only in combat situations." The adults seemed skeptical. Some flexible truths, Cameron decided, might assist her in making her point. "Wiley has spent a great deal of time around humans. The 950 _is _half human. Some of that was revealed in his message about his trap. He might be a Skynet creation, but he can feel emotions. He's overconfident and was allowing it to show through. He thinks he's safe. He thinks we can't stop him."

Sarah thought about it for a few moments, staring down at the table. She was going to go along with this plan, no matter what, but she wasn't sure how comfortable she was going to feel about it. But Cameron was right. Wiley wasn't just a regular emotionless machine. He was a machine with human qualities, and perhaps even human foibles. If she was right, it would be his humanity that traps him.

"Okay," she nodded, "let's go."

...

Lieutenant J.G. Justin Patterson was a little nervous. He was not sure what to expect out of the day. A nugget without even a full deployment under his belt, he had never even fired a live weapon before, not even in training. The closest he had come was practice bombs and simulated combat maneuvers. Today he was going to shoot a live Sidewinder. Two of them, actually.

He looked around the ready room for his element leader, Lieutenant Commander Wiley. Why did he have to go with the training officer, the best pilot in the squadron? It was one thing to be new at this, it was entirely another to look bad compared to the other guy. Patterson had to remember that if he was flying with Wiley, he could at least learn from the best.

Speaking of Wiley, he hadn't arrived yet. They were supposed to have element briefings five minutes ago. The other aviators flying that afternoon had already gone through their flight plans. All he had was his briefing papers and instructions… Wait, there he was.

"Hey," Wiley greeted as he sat down in the leather chair next to Patterson, "change of plans."

Patterson didn't like changes. "What? Are we not going on the shoot?"

Wiley nodded, "yeah, we are. But I pulled a few strings. After we do our shoot, we're going to hit the tanker and fly back to the Dare County range for some strafing practice."

Well, that changed things. "Really?"

"Yeah. The ordies are loading gun rounds on our jets right now."

"Sweet."

They would be flying in two hours.

...

"Met report's still nasty," Whip told Kitty. The two of them would be taking 207 out on the MissEx alone. First, they would take the aircraft out on a maintenance check ride to be sure everything worked. Next they were supposed to join up with a chase plane from VFA-37 and fire a pair of sidewinders at a drone using only the WSOs cuing system for guidance. It would be a challenging flight.

The meteorology department called for a rainless, overcast day. The storms over the weekend had done nothing but add more moisture to the atmosphere, and the August heat was going to make it like living in a sauna today. Ceiling was supposed to be around three thousand feet, but no one was really sure where the tops were yet. The whole system extended well out into the Atlantic, into the shooting area.

"I'd still rather be up there," Kitty replied. With Parker joining on last week, she'd been given no opportunities to be part of the exercise. Today was her first chance to get out there and get off some live rounds.

The missiles were going to be older AiM-9Ms, she read, weapons from the early 80's that had outlived their reliable lives. That didn't bother her. This whole exercise was just one big ordinance disposal anyway, but if they could all learn something from it, then she was happy to oblige.

"You excited?" Whip asked as they sat in their comfortable seats, going over the flight plan and range rules.

"Yeah," Kitty nodded.

"Let's just hope it doesn't go like the Phoenix missile disposal did in Oh-Four."

Kitty looked up at her WSO, "why's that?"

Before he could answer, Lieutenant Parker strode in, making a bee-line for the coffee machine. "Hey, Fungus," she greeted. Poor Fungus was sitting the duty again.

"Hey, Spy. What's up?"

"Not much," Parker replied, "I just need my afternoon dose of caffeine."

"Coffee should be done, now. I just made some more."

"Thanks," Parker took her mug off the wall and began to pour a cup. "Anyone else want some while I'm up?" She scanned the room with those chocolate eyes of hers, and they hovered for a little while over Whip. No one took her officer, except for the Lieutenant Commander.

"Yeah," Whip said finally, "I'll top mine off." Parker smiled broadly as he offered his mug. Kitty watched Parker take it and saunter back to the counter top. She liked the new intel officer very much, but the woman was being abnormally friendly today. Maybe something good happened this weekend, perhaps?"

"Anything in it?"

Whip stroked his mustache, "yeah, one sugar." The J.G. obliged and filled his mug, stirring in the sugar for him and bringing it back. The brown eyes met Kitty's, and the female pilot detected the hint of a sparkle.

"What's go you in such a good mood?" Kitty asked as soon as Whip had taken his mug and offered his thanks.

Parker's eyes rolled in thought, "I just had a really exciting weekend."

"Uh-oh! How exciting?"

A quick cock of the head, "let's just say it got pretty scorching."

Kitty laughed, "okay. Well, when I get back you and I are gonna have to talk. You can tell me all about it."

"Okay!" Parker grinned and went back to the coffee maker to fill her cup.

"If you hens are done…" Whip teased before taking a gulp of his drink.

"Yeah, your Phoenix thing."

"Yeah, one day, one of the F-14s in the shoot…"

"Whip, c'mon." Kitty interrupted.

"What?" The older officer shrugged, "I wasn't actually there for this one. Anyway, so the remaining F-14 squadrons were going to dispose of the AiM-54s because they're being retired. So one of the F-14s in the shoot goes out to launch. Everything is great. The sky is clear, the radar is really tuned in, and they pick up the drone. The launch parameter is for maximum range, a hundred miles. The crew locks up the target, puts the missile in loft mode, and fires. Release goes fine, the motor ignites, the missile climbs into the sky. Well, for some reason, halfway downrange it pulls this crazy half loop and comes right back at the formation, and its proximity radar activates."

"Oh, my God," Kitty couldn't contain her grin, "was everyone okay?"

"Yeah, the formation breaks and the missile just shoots right past everyone before self-destructing. Pretty scary." Whip shifted in his seat and winced a little, but not at the story.

"That's pretty nuts," Kitty shook her head. Whip offered a strained smile and a nod. His eyebrows knitted.

"Yeah, it was… uh…"

Kitty leaned in to her WSO, "Whip, are you okay?"

"I'm fine," he said, nodding emphatically. Then his eyes shot wide open and he vomited more forcefully than Kitty had ever seen anyone do.

"Holy shit!" she screeched, "Are you alright?" Whip couldn't answer. He heaved again and vomited just as violently as before. Kitty's eyes were wide open.

The man leaned forward, his eyes shut tight and his breathing heavy. "Oh, God… I don't know what…" and he puked again.

"Fungus, call down to the infirmary!" Kitty shouted, "C'mon, Whip, let's get you to the head."

"Okay," there was no protest. As Kitty helped him up, one of the other flyers ran up with a trashcan and Whip put it to use. "Hey, Kitty?"

"Yeah?"

"I can make it okay. If this doesn't clear up by flying time, don't you miss out because of me."

"I promise," she said. Whip puked again and made his way out the door.

Kitty turned to Fungus, who had just hung up the phone. "Well?"

"They're sending an ambulance. It should be here any minute."

"Okay, I guess I'll go get a mop. Do you wanna go flying?"

"Hell, yeah."

Cameron sipped her own cup of coffee as fungus shot up from the duty desk and laid claim to whip's briefing notes. So much of what had just happened could have gone wrong, but the events flowed as she had surmised they would. The ipecac had done the trick. That was one hurdle out of the way at least.

...

John was working with Chung in the paraloft today. The asian girl had not really spoken very much to him, and would not look him in the face. There was a nervous tension emanating from her. It was obvious that she wanted to talk, but there wasn't any courage to say it. She was artificially focused on her work, which made his part of the plan a little easier.

Chung was down one of the isles, dutifully checking the communications plugs on the helmets and had her back turned when he got a text message from Cameron. It said only two words; Gerard Collier.

John walked over to the cubby holes where the oxygen masks were kept and pulled out an MBU-24 labeled with Gerard's name. He took a tiny bottle out of his pocket and a strip of cloth. Careful not to be too noisy, he poured the contents of the bottle onto the cloth, then wadded up the piece of cloth and shoved it beneath the fold of the face piece where it would be invisible. He did the same to Collier's mask. He then secreted the bottle away and returned to the desk.

Chung came around the corner at the same time as he, and she jumped, startled. "hey, PO," she offered weakly before moving away.

"Hey," he called after her, "are you okay?"

"I'm fine," this too was a weak mumble. She didn't look up from a clipboard on the desk.

"Look," he said, "about what happened the other night…"

"I didn't get you in trouble did I?" Chung asked quickly.

John smirked, "no, you didn't. I got chewed out but that was all. No write-ups, no reprimands. Nothing."

"Oh," the girl said, nodding, "I was really worried. I spent a lot of Sunday praying about it."

"I guess it worked," he said, smiling warmly.

She smiled back, "I guess so." She glanced away for a moment, at a thought that was floating in the corner of her eye. "Thanks for not, you know, taking advantage of me. It would have been really easy."

"I just didn't want you to rush into something you weren't ready for."

Chung chuckled, "Oh, I was. Believe me, I would have in a second. But I don't want my first time to be drunk on the beach. I'm glad you respected me enough to stop, even if I didn't want you to." They shared a long, heavy stare, and an awkward but pleasant smile.

"There are a lot of things I need to tell you," John said, "but I can't tell you yet."

"You will someday, right?"

"Of course."

Before the exchange could continue, Kitty and Fungus entered the paraloft.

"Petty Officer," Kitty greeted, "Airman."

"Ma'am," they both said in unison.

John watched them break out their equipment. "Um, Lieutenant Collier, where's Commander Barlowe?"

Fungus answered for her. "He's really sick with something. Started puking. They're getting an ambulance for him."

Chung's almond eyes went wide, "is he going to be okay?"

"Yeah," Fungus said as he zipped on his g-suit.

"Probably just some food poisoning," Kitty added, buckling her torso harness, "he should be fine tomorrow."

The door to the paraloft swung open, and Cameron strode through. Her shoes clacked loudly on the linoleum floor. She gave them a wispy smile and leaned against the wall, hands tucked behind her back. John noticed that she had just applied lipstick. It was a natural color, like Kitty Collier's natural color.

"Good to see you two working hard," she said to John and Chung, "and behaving." John smirked. Chung's face reddened. The female terminator turned to the officers. "The ambulance got here. They're going to take him to the infirmary. He's feeling better but he's still really pale."

"Thanks for the update," Kitty smiled, "that was pretty scary." She pulled her helmet over her head and grabbed her oxygen mask. As was his habit, Fungus was testing the fit of his. Kitty was not.

Fungus had the mask over his face, adjusting the straps to one of the bayonet clips. He took a breath to hold before he slid the other clip in. His eyes boggled for a second, and he slumped to the floor.

"Fungus!" Kitty nearly screamed, reaching out for the WSO as he collapsed. She didn't get far. Cameron was on her quickly, covering her face with a cloth. After a quick, panicked breath, she too succumbed to unconsciousness.

Chung went to scream, but John pulled her close to him and covered her mouth. "Don't scream, Jennifer," he said to her firmly but he hoped gently enough to not frighten her. Her back was pressed against his body, and he remembered what she felt like lying next to him. "It's going to be okay," her reassured her, "can I trust you?"

"John, we need to hurry," Cameron said in her own firmness as she began to undress Lieutenant Collier. Chung's eyebrows knitted, but she nodded, and he let her go.

"Are they dead? Did you kill them?" She asked.

"No," Cameron answered for him as John unzipped a duffle bag and pulled out a functional MBU-24 that he had built up in the shop that morning. "We used a potent ACE mixture; Alcohol, Chloroform, and Ether. They will probably be unconscious for about an hour. John, we really do need to be expeditious."

"Why is she calling you John, Petty Officer? That's not your name."

John knelt by Fungus and began to remove his flight gear. "I'm not Petty Officer Thomas Castle. He doesn't exist. My name is John Connor."

"You're who?" Chung had never heard of Sarah Connor or her exploits.

"He's a very important person," Cameron's tone might have been too forceful, as if she were losing patience, "in the future, he leads the human resistance against the Skynet Defense System and its efforts to eradicate the human race."

Chung's mouth dropped open, "that's crazy!"

"It's true," Cameron said as she began to dress in Kitty's gear.

"It can't be."

"It is," the machine insisted as she zipped up the flight suit.

"How can you think that?"

Cameron stepped close to Chung, her brown eyes boring holes into the girl. With a command, she lit her oculars and they showed blue beneath the biological pair. "Because I'm one of the machines."

Something inside Jennifer Chung gave way, and she just couldn't process it. Overwhelmed, she passed out. Cameron caught her and laid her gently on the floor. "You should have done her, too." she said to John as she returned to work. Her voice was stern and critical, "You should not have told her all those things."

"I used all of it on these two. You're the one who did the eye thing," John shot back, "it would have been easier for her to just think we were crazy."

"No," Cameron said, "it wouldn't." They dressed quickly. Cameron had been correct in her judgment that Kitty's clothes would fit her well. The same assessment had been true of Fungus for John. They were now digging some last-minute supplies out of the duffel bag; a silenced Mark 23 Mod 0 pistol and two spare magazines loaded with .45 ACP, a roll of three thousand dollars in hundreds, their alternate civilian IDs as Cameron and John Baum, an X26 Air Taser modified to double the voltage output, and Cameron's favorite USP, to which she had added a silencer. They were loading these into the pockets of their survival vests when Muck walked through the paraloft door.

"Hey, Kitty, is that Whip going out to…" he wasn't permitted to finish. The business end of John's pistol was staring him in the eye, "whoa!"

"Quiet," John grunted.

"Hey, I don't know what the hell's going on here," Muck began. Before John could order him to be quiet, Cameron stood up, cross-gripped the front of Muck's CWU-27, and slammed him bodily against the wall, lifting him off his boots.

"Holy shit…" Muck gasped, "Parker?" But her point was made. He would be silent.

Cameron glanced over her shoulder, "put the gun down, John." John didn't want to. He felt certain the officer would scream for help as soon as the threat was gone, but there was something in Cameron's face. She did not want Commander McCowen to come to harm. It was in her eyes, a pleading.

John tried to be firm, "he's going to yell for help. I've gotta do something."

"You can't shoot him. Put the gun down, John. Please."

"Um, Can I say something?" Muck asked.

"No," John and Cameron said in unison, both firmly.

"You can't shoot him," Cameron repeated, "We need him."

"Huh?" the pilot was confused.

The pistol began to waver, "you told him about this?"

"No," Cameron replied, "not now. In the future. He's important there. Derek told me."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Muck was completely confused.

"Your fear about sentient machines," Cameron looked at him deeply, "is true. In the future, you'll help us fight them." To prove her point, she flashed her eyes again, and put Muck down. The pilot stood there for a second, stunned by what he had seen. John lowered the pistol.

Cameron turned away and was about to tell John it was time to go when Muck lashed out. He grabbed a helmet from a shelf and slammed it into the head of the woman he had known as Erin Parker. The fiberglass shell stove in against the cyborg's coltan head, and one of the bayonet receivers cut her at the temple. Muck was stock straight now, ready to attack again. John was too stunned by his act to even lift the pistol, and when he saw Cameron, he realized he didn't need too. She looked over at the pilot, her lips parted and her eyes wide. If she were human, he could have sworn her feelings were hurt.

Muck, for his part, knew that a hit like that should have knocked her out cold. Instead, she was just surprised, and all he had for a weapon was a broken helmet. Then, he saw the glint at her temple, beneath the slick of what he would have assumed was blood any other day. It was a tiny glimmer, perhaps the size of a staple, but it was enough to reveal her for what she truly was.

The aviator thought back to their conversations, and he lowered the helmet. There was shame in his eyes. "What you must think of us…"

"Is irrelevant," Cameron said to him, "what I think of you is this; you are the most honest person I have ever met. I am privileged to have known you. I will always think of you as a friend. Let us go. You will come to no harm." Muck nodded. Cameron lifted Kitty's helmet and oxygen mask off the floor, discarding the wad of cloth with the anesthetic on it. A quick turn, and she and John went out the door and into the hangar.

...

Wiley held his hands up so that the ordies could see them, showing them that there was no danger he might misfire the weapons. At each wingtip, a crank pin was pulled from an AiM-9M Sidewinder air-to-air missile. The red-jerseyed crewmen walked away, and he was given a thumbs up. His hands went back to the throttle and stick.

He gave a look over at Rampager 306, the jet that Patterson would be flying, and saw the same ritual was being performed there. He glanced forward, past the bow of the ship. He judged the sky above him to be ugly and grey, rainless and hazy. It was fortunate that he knew the exact flight path that the Tu-95 would take, where it would be at what time, and when he could intercept it with the best chance of success. Doing so without using his radar would be extremely difficult in this weather.

Wiley was given the signal to bring his aircraft forward onto the catapult track. As commanded, he went through the litany of checking his surfaces and dropping his tow bar. Beneath him, the F/A-18 was brought to tension. The catapult officer pointed skyward, and Wiley obliged him by putting his throttles into zone-five. He gave a salute, and his hands went to the handles.

The catapult officer checked the track, tucked his right hand behind his back, and leaned forward to touch the deck. Wiley was given just long enough to take a deep breath before the catapult fired. The Hornet raced along the track and off the bow, riding a cloud of steam. He pulled the stick back and rolled left just a little before slapping the gear handle up.

The systems on his airplane were sweet, and he had made it safely off the ship and into the air. He would succeed. There was no way anything could stop him now.

...

"Keep your visor down and put the mask on loosely enough that you can breathe," Cameron lectured as they walked across the tarmac for Gypsy 207, "you can tighten it up once we get onboard. If the plane captain or anyone else talks to you, don't say very much. Don't try to copy Gerard's voice. Act like you have laryngitis. Climb into the cockpit immediately. Do you know how to plug in?"

"Yes, Cameron," John grumbled, "I've been working with this shit for a week now. I know what I'm doing." He rolled the JHMCS visor down from the projector mounted on the helmet forehead and buckled the oxygen mask into place. While Cameron could use Kitty's, she did not want John to risk using Fungus's mask, since there might still be ACE residue in it. He had been required to build his own, and he had done a pretty good job, he thought.

"Respectfully, no you don't. Just don't arouse any suspicion. We're not safe until we leave the ground." Cameron dropped her visor over her eyes. Without the mask to hold it up, the visor actually could cover all but the mouth and chin. There would be no way the plane captain could easily tell that it was not Kitty Collier who was coming to fly.

"What was that back there with Muck anyway?"

"It was a personal matter," she said, "I don't want to talk about it." They walked up to 207.

"Lieutenant Collier, ma'am," the brown-shirted plane captain called out to them. Fortunately it was not Zatanno this time, "I thought we were expecting Mr. Barlowe, too."

"He's sick," Cameron said in Kitty's voice, "food poisoning." She had taken great efforts to copy Kitty's body language, and it had proved fortunate that she had been exposed to the woman for some time. She shook hands with the enlisted man while John planed up.

"Sorry to hear that. Well, she's in good order, ma'am."

"Happy to hear it," Cameron began a walkaround of the fighter. It would take precious time, but she could not risk any suspicion raised by not following procedure exactly as Kitty had. Plus, if they were taking this aircraft into combat, Cameron wanted to make sure that there was nothing that might go wrong, not that she would have any control over that. Fortunately, 207 had just come out of a scheduled maintenance evolution and should be in perfect working order.

John sat down in the WSOs seat and began plugging his hoses and communications chords in, and then buckled the restraints into the kotch fittings of his torso harness. He had a clipboard strapped to his knee with a checklist, and he ran through that as best he could, given his limited understanding of what was in front of him. As he finished, he saw Cameron completing her walk of the jet. She climbed the boarding ladder and sat in the front seat. The plane captain came up to check on them, making sure they were plugged and buckled, and that the restraints were adequately firm. He then bid them a good flight and climbed down.

Using Kitty's voice, Cameron asked the Oceana tower for start-up clearance and received it. As per procedure, she started the left engine first. As the GE-F414 spooled up, John shifted uncomfortably in the hard ejection seat, wishing there was more padding and hoping the flight wouldn't take too long.

...

Sarah and Derek drove the cars to the convention center on Jefferson Avenue. There, they left Cameron's sedan with all their personal belongings in the trunk. When the time came, they would take with them only what was in the jeep.

Among the items that Chapman had fabricated for them was an ID sticker for the windshield, and Derek applied it as Sarah tossed anything they would not need into Cameron's car. Sarah then put the car key inside a magnetic lock box and placed that well underneath the bumper.

She straightened the dark business suit she wore after she stood up, and took a deep breath of the ocean breeze. She did not wonder whether she would see John again. She was confident enough in Cameron's abilities to know she would. She could just feel it. And if she did not, then nothing mattered. She would see him again in death.

"Ready?" Derek asked. They would have to busy themselves for an hour before starting their portion of the mission. Now was as good a time as any to catch a quick meal. That was one thing Sarah wasn't certain of; when she would be able to eat again. She let Derek drive, and when she got in, she tossed him his ID.

They were no longer Sarah Connor and Derek Reese. For the next few hours, they would be Special Agent Angela Hart and Special Agent David Kimmer of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service.

...

When they stopped at the apron for runway 23L and Cameron raised her hands, John was certain they had been caught and the game was up. But Cameron reassured him that the ordinancemen waiting at the apron would not arm the weapons until their hands were in view. John raised his own gloved hands and the red-shirts did their duty. The teenager watched them as he sat there, breathing the wet, cool, rubbery-tasting air through his oxygen mask.

Past the nose of Gypsy 207, an F/A-18C made a beautiful landing, touching down right on the numbers without so much as a squeal of the tires. Cameron was in the pilot's seat running through the take-off checklist, and that gave John time to think about what was actually going to happen. He should have been very excited. And he was until he found himself parked here at the edge of the runway waiting for the next step. He was seventeen and sitting in the cockpit of a multi-million dollar piece of military hardware. This should have been an absolute wet dream to him.

The radio buzzed. "Gypsy 207, Oceana control, you are cleared for take-off. After take-off, climb and maintain angels two-point-five and come left to course one-eight-zero for five miles. Then left again for course zero-niner-zero. Once you cross the beach, climb to altitude angels ten. Maintain course and await further."

"207," Cameron replied in Kitty's voice. She goosed the throttle and the F/A-18F rolled forward onto the runway.

"Uh, Cameron," John said over the ICS.

"Yes?" was her patient reply.

"I've never flown before," he admitted, a little ashamed.

"Too late for that now," the cyborg responded as the fighter lined up on the runway. She shoved the throttle levers to the stops, then outboard and into full afterburner. Gypsy 207 began to roll down the runway as the engines bellowed out a deep, throaty roar. The whole aircraft shuddered around John from the power as they gained speed. Cameron pulled the stick back and the nose rose gently into the air. At almost two hundred knots, the wings were generating enough lift, and the Super Hornet rose into the air.

"Jesus Christ…" John managed as the force of the take-off pressed him into his seat. His stomach did flips as it caught up with the rest of him. Cameron slapped the gear handle up, and with an electric whine, the landing gear rose into their respective wells. They were now flying fast enough that the flaps were not necessary, and the flight computer retracted those as well. At twenty-five hundred feet, the cyborg leveled the nose and brought the aircraft out of afterburner.

They were flying.

John was absolutely certain that no roller-coaster had ever felt like this. Such speed. Such power. He looked out the canopy at the ground below and felt disconnected instantly by almost a half mile of distance. The clouds were closer than he'd ever seen them before. Cameron was weaving a little to evade some low stratocumulus, and John could feel every turn in his gut, like a warm hand were tickling his belly. The puffy grey objects were so close that if he could only reach far enough, he could touch them.

At five miles, Cameron rolled to bring them to the commanded course. To John, it felt as if they were staying stationary and the whole world had tilted around them. Curiously, he looked out to his left to see the earth beside them instead of below. The turn pressed on his spine and tugged at his bowels, and he felt the anti-g trousers inflate a little with an inaudible crinkle, squeezing on his thighs.

They rolled level again smoothly, and John found himself completely unsurprised that Cameron was capable of not only flying the airplane, but capable of flying it quite well. He had, after all, seen terminators operate all kinds of vehicles, from bikes to helicopters. And he had been a passenger in Cameron's car many times, witnessing even there her smooth and gentle driving style.

He rolled the smokey visor up so that he could see the world better. There was no sun down here and so no need for it yet. The cloud layer above was a menacing ceiling of slate that was as uniform and smooth as stone. The globe might as well have been a cathedral floor.

The beach passed beneath them, a long beige strip between the green land and the obsidian sea. Cameron pulled the stick back again, bringing the nose once more into a gentle climb. The vast expanse of cloud grew nearer, coming down to meet them as they rose. They slammed into the ceiling suddenly. John had expected the transition to be less sudden, had thought he might watch the city below sink out of view. Instead, they were thrown into this hazy world that ended where the wing was supposed to be. They were still climbing, he could tell from his stomach, but it felt as if they were climbing into nothing, flying through a universe of nothing. The clouds may as well not had a top or a bottom, infinite in all directions.

"Oceana, Gypsy 207, we are at angels 10, and in the clouds."

"Roger, 207, go ahead and climb out of it. Let us know when you make it clear. Once you are, we have some space cleared for maneuvers at bearing one-three-five for thirty-five."

"207," Cameron continued their climb, and as an added measure, brought the aircraft to 135 degrees.

With no reference points, John was unable to tell how they were oriented, and his inner ear began telling him that they were doing slow rolls to the right. He gripped the edges of his ejection seat a little more tightly. "Are you turning," he asked Cameron, "I feel like we're turning."

The cyborg shook her head. She had raised her visor and he could see her eyes in the rearview mirror on her canopy frame. "No," she said, "you've got vertigo. There is an artificial horizon on the instrument panel above your right knee. It looks like a black and white ball. Find it."

John looked down and sure enough, there was the described instrument. "Okay."

"That instrument is always right. Focus on it and the feeling should pass." He followed her instructions, repeating silently to himself that the gauge was always right, the gauge was always right. In a short while, he was able to make his inner ear believe it, too, and the vertigo went away.

He discovered that he had some other instruments to look at, including an altimeter and air speed indicator. They were traveling at five hundred knots and passing through twenty thousand feet just know. Cameron had the fighter in an easy seven-degree climb.

They broke out of the clouds at twenty-two thousand feet and into afternoon sunlight so bright that John had to squint his eyes. He remembered that he had a visor and rotated it down to shield his eyes from the white sun. They were floating atop an endless blanket of cotton now. The occasional tower of a cumulonimbus poked up through the vast snowy floor, towering over them.

Cameron reported her escape from the clouds to Oceana, and continued on her course. With great grace and finesse, she carved a path through the sky, between the towering columns of puffy white. John thought up a perfect comparison to it that sounded intellectual enough to be proud of; like chasing through the ruins of the Parthenon.

Beautiful in a way he was almost at loss to describe, it made him forget the stale rubbery air he was breathing, the unhappy gymnastics of his stomach, or the purely lethal reason why they were up here in the first place. His gloved hand found the canopy, as if he could absorb the very energy of the sky around him. As if ready to wave at an angel perched on a cloud as they passed.

"Oceana, Gypsy 207. We are going to commence our maintenance tests now," Cameron said, "requesting clearance to exceed Mach One."

"207, you are cleared to commence. Enjoy it."

That got John's attention. "Did you say Mach One? As in the sound barrier?"

"I did say Mach One," Cameron confirmed, "Do you see those two big tanks beneath the wings? I'm going to use the radar signature of them separating to simulate us breaking up in flight. We know where Wiley will be, but we don't know how long we have until our theft is discovered. An engine explosion while exceeding the speed of sound is not likely, but it _can_ happen. It will buy us time if they think we crashed."

John could not hold back a smile. "Alright."

Cameron continued, "We are going to perform a rapid descent after a few moments at speed, make sure you are strapped in tight."

"Oh. Okay."

"Here we go." Cameron shoved the throttles forward, and the engines rumbled as they vomited twin cones of flame. The sudden acceleration pushed John back into his seat. This was going to be awesome! He was going supersonic. It would be really cool to hear the boom when they crossed over. He watched the mach meter scroll upwards towards Mach 1.

Nothing happened. The gauge rolled over to Mach 1.1 and continued to climb without John able to tell anything had changed. Well, that was anticlimactic. If he had been outside the aircraft, he would have seen a vapor cone envelope the fighter for the instant that it passed through the speed of sound, but as it was, he missed it.

In the front seat, Cameron checked the radar warning receiver on the center multifunction display against her knowledge of what was flying today. There was the lone pulsing Doppler wave of a fighter radar far out to the north, probably heading south in search of a target drone, but they were well out of its detectable range. The RWR would not tell them about any civilian or military air traffic radars, because these would never really present a threat to the aircraft anyway. But they should complete this maneuver just in case.

On the right screen she called up the stores management screen and selected the two fuel tanks on stations four and eight. She selected the number four first. This would take timing and precision.

"Hold on," she warned John, and she reefed the fighter into a wide roll until they were inverted and then pulled the nose back below the horizon. She punched off one of the wing tanks, and the cigar-shaped fuel cell separated from the fighter in a tumble. Continuing their descent back into the clouds and steepening their dive, she turned off the IFF transponder that assisted air traffic receivers in tracking them. Finally, the second wing tank was jettisoned. These would look like objects breaking away from a destroyed aircraft.

Now to make them look like they'd crashed. She maintained the steep dive, throwing in a roll or two to give the illusion that they were tumbling. Perhaps she was putting too much effort into it, but it was probably best to overdo it than not to do it enough.

"Hey," John asked, "aren't you going to pull up?" He was looking at the altimeter and began to get a little worried when they passed under ten thousand feet. "Cameron?"

"It's okay, just hold on." The fighter had fallen back down below the sound barrier, and as she added another roll, she retarded the throttles even further. This would probably knock John out, but she had to do it. At three thousand feet, she went to idle and popped out the speed brakes. Rolling them level, she waited until the last possible moment to pull back hard on the stick.

It was an instant nine Gs. Cameron was unaffected, but John, not having been taught the breathing exercises, G-LOCed in seconds and was unconscious by the time the fighter leveled out at less than two hundred feet. He would wake up again soon enough. The cyborg turned the fighter East, heading for Wiley.

...

"Whoa, look at that," one of the air traffic controllers at Oceana said to his supervisor. He pointed to the screen where his track of Gypsy 207 was and ran back the recording for the other man. The radar track showed an object separating from the Navy fighter, the failure of the ID transponder, and a rapid loss of altitude, followed by another separation. At that far out, the radar horizon was a thousand feet. Anything below that was lost in ground clutter. "What do you make of that, sir?"

The tower supervisor let out a long breath. "God damn. They were doing maintenance checks on a Rhino. Looks like they had a midair break up."

"Think anyone made it?"

"Suddenly as that happened, I doubt it." He walked over to a phone and dialed. "Oceana Command? Yeah, this is Lieutenant Wade in the tower. We lost one. Yes, Gypsy 207. Better start search and rescue procedures."

...

The _Ticonderoga_-class guided missile cruiser USS _Port Royal_ knifed through the black water. She was bound for Norfolk, due back from training exercises. The ship had been out for two weeks, operating in the Caribbean and working with some of the smaller Navies down that way. The kerosene turbine power plants were pushing the ship to a pleasant thirty knots over this glassy ocean. The _Ticonderoga_-class may have been cruisers, but they were built on destroyer hulls, and the ship was using that to advantage. It was much more pleasant than the seas had been yesterday, for sure.

The captain, an experienced cruiser man, stood out on the port side bridge wing with a cup of coffee and a pair of binoculars. They had the surface search radar on, but in the well-trafficked waters of the US East Coast, you could never be too careful, and it was wise to keep a sharp lookout. Besides, watching the merchant traffic could occasionally prove interesting.

"Captain," a sailor appeared at his side, "we just got a call from Oceana. They've had a jet go down in out vicinity. They'd like us to check it out."

"Alright," the captain agreed, and he walked back inside. His XO was standing just forward of the navigation console, choosing to do inside what the captain had been doing out. "XO, you have the conn. I'm going down to CIC to coordinate from there." At the back bulkhead of the navigation bridge there was a ladder, a very steep stair, that took him down one deck and to the combat information center. When he arrived in the compartment, he met the Tactical Action Officer. "What's the situation?"

"F/A-18F Super Hornet named Gypsy 207 went down thirty miles north-northeast while on a maintenance check. They were making a supersonic run when the aircraft apparently came apart in the air. It happened so suddenly that there wasn't any time to eject." The TAO showed him the details on one of the large screens that dominated the front of the compartment.

The captain shook his head, "what an awful way to die. They broke up at twenty-thousand feet?"

"There abouts, sir."

"If they did that, the debris will be scattered over this whole area," the captain pointed on the screen, circling the crash marker. He put his arms akimbo and let out a sigh. He had been involved in SAR before, and in crashes like this, all they could do was pick up debris. He had seen an F-14 go into the water in the Mediterranean before. The accident happened so fast that the crew had no time to get out. A detail he would always remember is that they found a piece of the pilot's scalp draped over a corner of the tail. "Let's go have a look. Go to General Quarters for SAR, set green deck, and launch one of our helicopters as soon as possible."

...

The two F/A-18s were flying in loose deuce formation; line abreast and a mile apart. They were well outside the radar picture of USS _Eisenhower_ and had not yet entered the coverage for the E-2 Hawkeye that was playing referee in the exercise area today. No one could see them.

Wiley had put off this task as long as he could. Part of him found it a shame that he could not simply have been on this flight alone. But the exercise had called for two of them, and it was the one he could get. And failing to accomplish his mission because his human portions were having moral qualms with killing a colleague was unacceptable.

He selected his maneuver and performed it, rolling the fighter into a lazy twist that brought him directly behind Patterson's fighter.

"What the hell, Coyote?" The J.G. asked, his voice bright in the anticipation of some unauthorized ACM. Wiley answered him with the squeeze of a trigger. The gun in the nose buzzed and fifty high-explosive rounds ripped into the other Hornet. Patterson had no chance to transmit that he was being attacked. His jet was ripped apart and the young man was killed instantly.

...

At first, Muck had been too stunned by the revelations made in the paraloft to do anything but stand there and let the machine woman and that kid get away. They didn't kill him when they could have, for which Muck was eternally grateful, but that didn't automatically make them good guys. Somewhere, deep down, the pilot felt that he should do what he could to help them. If they were going through the trouble of stealing a Navy fighter, than there must have been a good reason behind it.

There was also saving his skin as well. He had allowed two people, potential terrorists, to make off with a high-tech weapons system. And it was armed, though lightly. He had just stood by and let it happen. So, in order to further delay the discovery of the missing jet, he had dragged Chung, Kitty, and Fungus into a tool closet and locked them inside.

He wasn't on the flight schedule for the day, so he had nowhere to be. We went into Erin Parker's office and shut the door. Well, she wasn't really Parker was she? They had called each other John and Cameron. He sat down at her computer, pulled up a search engine, and typed the names in. What came up surprised him.

Newspaper articles from a decade ago told the story of John Connor, his mother Sarah, and John's classmate Cameron Phillips holding up a bank and then subsequently blowing themselves up inside it. Following the links, she took a look at Sarah Connor. And, wow, she was a prize-winning whack-a-doodle. There was even a Wikipedia article on her. She had been locked up in a mental institution because she was blowing up tech companies. She believed they were making sentient machines that were turning on mankind.

Sentient machines, machines that could think and act like a person. If Muck had not spent a week of his life exposed to Cameron Phillips in the guise of Erin Parker, had he not seen the glint of metal from the cut in her temple, he would have agreed Sarah Connor was crazy. Not so anymore.

Muck reevaluated his beliefs in the face of what he had discovered, beliefs Cameron had pulled out of them during their discussion, and realized that he held them to be true. She had fooled him, yes, but she was not just a mere tool. She was a person, too.

...

The marine sentry at the Oceana gate saw the Jeep and leaned out of the window of the booth to watch it drive up. At the wheel was an intense, scruffy-faced man. Beside him was a black-haired woman in sunglasses. They both offered IDs at once. He could see from the badges that they were with NCIS. While he checked them out, another marine checked the chassis out with a mirror. When he gave a signal that everything was okay, they were waved through.

"That was easier than I like," Derek said.

"Pessimist," Sarah smirked. "We're supposed to turn left at this roundabout." Derek approached the traffic circle and wheeled left. An oncoming car honked at him as he turned onto Hornet Drive. "You were supposed to go to the right."

"You said left!"

"It was a roundabout, you were supposed to circle to the right."

"Whatever."

"The base administration should be up here somewhere," Sarah told him, "be ready, we might have to go in guns blazing." Derek shot her a look, and she shrugged, "God forbid it be easier than you like."

...

There was a shuffling in the closet, followed by some groggy groans, and a few thuds that might have been someone flailing about for something.

"That's not a light switch!" Kitty warned irritably.

"What the hell happened?" Chung asked.

"My head hurts," Fungus complained. He had been the first to go down and couldn't remember anything.

"Stop trying to find it, Fungus, I've got it."

"I'm closer to the wall."

"No you aren't." Kitty rubbed her hands all around by the door and finally, the light flicked on. There was a moment of subdued silence as their eyes adjusted to the light.

"Kitty, why are we locked in a closet in our underwear?" The female pilot ignored him and began banging loudly on the door of the closet and shouting for help. It wasn't long before it arrived.

Commander Morgan flung the door open, his eyes wide at the racket. When he saw two of his officers and an enlisted woman standing there in the closet mostly undressed, his eyebrows nearly hit his hairline. "Um," he pursed his lips and nodded, "Okay, I'm all for this kinda of stuff, but you can't bring your kinks to work."

"Skipper, our gear was stolen." Kitty said impatiently.

"Wait," Morgs remembered, "you two are supposed to be flying today. If you're here, who was in 207?"

"_Was?_" Fungus was surprised.

"Yeah, oh my God, I thought it was you guys. I was on my way over to check the SAR effort."

"The jet crashed?"

Kitty tried again to explain. "We were drugged and our gear was stolen. They must have taken the jet, too."

Morgs's eyebrows knitted."Who?"

"Parker and… that petty officer. I don't know his name," Kitty turned to Chung, "what is it?"

Chung took a deep breath and remembered the flash in the woman's eyes, that mechanical blue glow. She couldn't tell them the truth. They wouldn't believe it. "Petty Officer Castle. He's part of the rigging shop."

"Okay," Morgan nodded, "you two get dressed. You're all coming with me. We gotta get down there and let the base commander know that 207 was commandeered."


	12. Termination

Chapter 11: Termination

"You hypocrites: you can judge the sky and the earth, how is it you did not judge this time?"

-Luke 12:54

...

The cybernetic implants offered Brian Wiley's eyes some zoom capability, but he did not need that to see the glint of sunlight reflecting off the silver bomber in the distance. He could not quite make out the exhaust trails yet, but he knew that he was close. He had to be within twenty miles.

It was good that he had managed to find an excuse to carry gun ammunition. The bomber was so large that one of the IR missiles might not take it down. Or perhaps one of the weapons would not guide. For any number of reasons, he might have to use both.

He could make out the four streams of ashen exhaust left in the wake of the Tu-95. The bomber was in a shallow turn, making a course adjustment south. They had likely not seen him, and if he continued his course he could turn in behind the bomber and join up with it. The Russian aviators would need to see him and identify him as an American fighter. The Sidewinder he would then fire, even both, would be fatal to the aircraft but not the entire crew. Some of them would survive. He would need that, too.

The terminator reached up and flipped the combat mode switch to Air-to-air. That automatically brought up his stores management screen, his RWR, and activated the APG-73 radar. He was transmitting now. The Russians would detect that, and that was good. But no one else would. Who else could possibly be out here?

...

They had been racing along at six hundred knots, just two hundred feet above the wave tops, keeping below any search radars that might see them. Cameron would have liked to go faster, but the Super Hornet's airframe drag limited speed below ten thousand feet. Besides, after dumping their extra fuel tanks in faking their break-up, they did not have the fuel to be flying on afterburners too much longer. By dead reckoning, they were somewhere about eighty miles from the coast of North Carolina, well south of Oceana radar coverage and well north of the _Eisenhower_ battle group, which was steaming nearly two hundred miles further south.

John had powered up the helmet mounted cuing system as was getting ready for operation. Cameron did not have one and would need him to use it if they got in a tight spot, and he was getting used to the displays and what each symbol meant on the projections. Under her direction, he had slaved the missiles to track with him, so everywhere he looked, the seeker heads would look. Within limits, of course. If he turned his head too far, the circle projected on his visor became an X. He guessed that meant the weapon couldn't track. Absently, he wondered if this was how Cameron viewed the world all the time, with necessary information projected into her vision.

In the front seat, Cameron was concentrating on flying them low and level now that John was able to use the cuing system. They should be close now.

A strobe lit on the radar warning receiver. Someone was transmitting. The RWR quickly IDed the energy as originating from an APG-73, the type of radar mounted on an F/A-18C.

"There he is," Cameron said, "are you ready?"

"Yes," John answered, not sure he meant it. Cameron put the Rhino into afterburner and pulled the stick back hard. Gypsy 207 climbed into the air like a rocket, passing into the gray clouds. Upward they climbed, ten thousand feet, fifteen, twenty, and out into the bright sunlight in bare minutes.

Unlike Wiley, Cameron was all machine, and so she could zoom her optical sensors as necessary. For added insurance, she added a thermal overlay onto her regular vision and glanced around as she leveled off. There, off to the left about three miles. She had misjudged the climb.

...

Wiley was not so focused on the Bear that he failed to maintain his situational awareness. It took him one more paranoid look around to spot the other airplane flitting out of the clouds trailing twin cones of fire.

It must be Connor and his protector. He wasn't sure how they had done it, but they had acquired a fighter of their own. The cyborg must have been flying. If she had intended to intercept him, she had not properly executed it. Amateur!

The T-950 quickly checked his fuel gauge. Plenty of gas and weapons to fight them off and take care of the bomber. If they were looking for a fight, he would gladly oblige them.

...

Cameron saw the other jet break into them. They had been spotted. The fight was on. Recalling all of her programmed knowledge and experience, she began concocting her maneuvers in milliseconds. It was strange that Wiley should choose to engage. He should only have a single weapon with which to destroy his target…

The female terminator reefed the fighter in a hard turn and began punching flares out of the dispensers.

"What are you doing? We had him," John shouted, his voice strained by the g-forces.

"He's armed," and to punctuate her statement, a grey shape flashed behind them. It was one of Wiley's missiles, and it would have hit them if Cameron hadn't evaded when she did. She reefed the fighter back towards the enemy terminator as his fighter flew past them, "that was one. I see a second, he has two. Plus there are powder marks on the muzzle. His gun is loaded."

"You said it wouldn't be," shouted John as Wiley pulled vertical.

"An error," Cameron admitted.

John let his head flop back against the seat, "oh my God, we're gonna die."

"He does have the advantage of experience."

"Thanks," John said wryly. Cameron ignored him, focusing her eyes on their target, who was making a vertical maneuver that Cameron did not have the speed to follow. She would have to circle down here.

Wiley came over the top and arced back down again. He was well above them and faster, able to react to any maneuvers they might make. It frustrated him that his shot had missed. Connor's little lackey must have deduced that he was able to attack them just in time. He wanted to save the other missile for the bomber, so he selected his gun and went to boresight on the radar. When he brought his nose onto Cameron's Super Hornet, the radar automatically selected it and he began tracking with the pipper.

She rolled and pulled hard, sending twin trails of vapor curling off the wings. The G-meter sprang up with the new force, and John could feel the g-suit squeeze his legs in an effort to keep him awake. It was pointless, though. John, for all his physical health, was not a trained aviator taught how to combat high Gs. First the color went out of his sight, then tunnel vision set in. The world shrank to the size of a pinprick before winking out. John was unconscious. And Cameron had her hands full. Wiley had managed to park himself on her tail, less than a mile behind. She was going to have to get creative now.

...

The Oceana operations center was not a particularly impressive room. A few desks with desktop computers, a communications cubicle, and a map table were all that was present. There was a large status screen that showed the Oceana area of responsibility and the known unit traffic within it. Currently, the efforts of the staff here were focused on the recovery and rescue of Gypsy 207. Or at least they had been until Commander Morgan walked in with some of his squadron members.

"Oh, my God," Hawk Hudson gaped as he saw Fungus and Kitty. He had to restrain himself from showing too much relief. "How did they find you so quickly?"

"We never went," Fungus told him, "Lieutenant Parker and some kid from the rigger shop chloroformed us and stole our gear."

"And our plane," Kitty added, "207 was stolen."

At those words, a steely-haired man standing in the center of the room turned around. He had a bulldog face, and each of the collar tabs of his duty uniform was adorned with a single gold star. This was Admiral Raymond Fuller, the commanding officer of Oceana naval air station. "Did I hear you right, Lieutenant…?"

"Collier, sir," Kitty replied, "and yes. Gypsy 207 was stolen."

"Why?" Fuller asked.

"They didn't tell us, admiral," Fungus shrugged, "they just knocked us out. We woke up in a broom closet stripped to our skivvies. They were gone. Commander Morgan let us out and told us that you were searching for the crash."

No one noticed the door open again and two more people step into the operations room. They were in civilian clothes, not uniforms. One was a man with hard grey eyes who had forgotten to shave recently. The other was a green-eyed woman with black hair. They made a quick sweep of the room before their gazes landed on the admiral and the gaggle around him. Satisfied that he was the one in charge, they approached.

"Admiral Fuller," the woman called out to him. She walked up and held out a badge and ID, "I'm Special Agent Hart. This is Special Agent Kimmer," and the man offered his ID as well. "We understand you are missing an airplane."

Fuller gaped at them, "how did the word get out so fast? I just now found out the jet was stolen."

"We already knew," Sarah Connor said, "the people who stole the plane work for us. Lieutenant Parker and Petty Officer Castle have been in our employ for some time. One of the pilots in a squadron based here, Lieutenant Commander Brian Wiley, has been linked with a particular nationalist extremist movement we've had our eye on. His plan was to shoot down a Russian bomber in order to reboot the Cold War."

"Why would they do that?" Fuller couldn't believe that one of his own pilots would put the nation in jeopardy like that.

"We're not sure. But we have been trying to stop him for a while. Our recent efforts at apprehending him have met with failure. This was the last option we had left."

"But even if they had taken the flight gear, how could they have tricked the airplane maintenance crew? The plane captain would have looked them in the face. They would have talked to him. He would have known better!"

Morgs spoke up, "not if they had their visors down, sir. It's very hard to identify someone them."

Sarah nodded, "it also helps if the plane captain is also working for us. Don't bother running to ask him. He won't tell you. This is a national emergency issue, Admiral. The stability of our relations with another superpower are on the line here."

"Well, you're not in much luck now, ma'am," Fungus smirked, "your people crashed our plane."

No one saw it, but Sarah's eyes flared for just a second. _John?_ She swallowed hard, "are you sure? Haven't you been tracking it on radar?"

"Yes," Hawk told her, "they went supersonic and broke up shortly afterwards. We have a radar recording of big parts separating from the airplane and a drastic loss in altitude."

"But no impact?" Derek Reese's eyes stared lasers at the man.

"We lost them in the ground clutter."

Sarah was fairly certain now that Cameron had pulled off some trick to make them believe this, but for herself she had to know. Was John dead? Had they failed? She looked up at the status board and down at the map table, trying to remember what all Cameron had told her. "What about Wiley? He was supposed to try his attack today. He was part of some missile exercise. I think his radio callsign is Rampage. He's flying off of an aircraft carrier."

"That's VFA-83," Hawk said, "They have a detachment on the _Eisenhower_ with the rest of air wing seven." Fuller asked for a copy of the flight schedule and got it. A quick scan showed him that the only flight for the day from VFA-83 had taken off over an hour ago headed for the exercise area.

He called to the senior chief supervising the communications. "Has Rampage flight checked in on the range yet?"

The question went out over the network, and the response came back. "No sir. They're overdue."

"No track on them yet?"

"No sir. They exited the _Ike_ radar coverage thirty minutes ago slightly off course. It would have been another twenty minutes that they entered the range of Closeout 606. 606 is the range ref for the day. They haven't seen them yet."

"You mean to tell me that we have _three_ fighters missing?"

"That's about the size of it, sir."

Sarah spoke up. "Wiley probably shot down his wingman in the gap in radar coverage and then flew east to intercept his target."

"He wouldn't have the fuel to do that and make it back," Morgs protested.

"He isn't worried about coming back," Derek said, "all he cares about is killing that bomber."

Fuller turned to the Operations watch officer, a bespectacled commander. "Do we have anything in the area that can fill the radar gap?"

The man checked, "yes sir. _Port Royal_ is steaming now for the crash area of 207. Their AEGIS radar will be able to cover that entire gap and then some."

"Contact them and tell them to abort the SAR operation and turn their air radars on. I want to know where those planes are!"

...

The MH-60S Seahawk helicopter was originally built as an anti-submarine platform, but the characteristics that made it such a good sub hunter also made it a good rescue helicopter. This particular one, Night Dipper 710, had taken off from _Port Royal_ bound to search the anticipated crash area for debris. Half way to the search zone, they came upon a peculiar object floating in the sea. It was small, and they would have missed it if the crew chief hadn't been looking right at it. He alerted the pilot to it. The big helicopter circled widely around and the pilot dropped it into a hover right over the floating object. The crew chief got a steady foothold and aimed a small pair of binoculars at it.

All he could see at first was a grey shape, a chunk of something. The ragged edges were yellow. It was piece of an airplane. A tail rudder, in fact. After watching it for a few more seconds, the crew chief was about to tell the pilot, but a wave flipped it over and some markings were visible. It had a ram's head on it. And there was a number. It was 306.

The call was made back to the ship. They had found some wreckage.

...

The _Port Royal_'s AN/SPY-1D Phased Array Radar powered up its air transmitters. The constant electronic sweep of the directional radar boards could detect anything in the sky as small as a missile for a range of around three hundred miles and up to orbital altitudes.

The radar operator got two immediate contacts nearby to the east. "TAO, radar," he called, "I've got two contacts to the east. A single at angels twenty-five heading one-seven-seven for forty miles. The other is a merge, no solid vector, altitude ranging from angels twenty to angels twenty-six. Range is thirty." The TAO and the captain were looking over his shoulders by then.

"Datalink this to NAS Oceana," the captain said and pointed at the merged plot on the radar screen, "this is a fight in progress right here."

...

"Admiral," the operations watch officer called, "_Port Royal_'s data is coming in now, sir. They've got a merged plot of two aircraft in a knife fight and a rudder from Rampage 306."

_John was alive_, Sarah thought, _in danger, but at least he's alive_.

"Looks like you were right, Agent Hart," Fuller said, "Rampage 306 was Wiley's wingman, a Lieutenant Patterson. Wiley must have shot him down." He barked to the Ops officer, "call the base JAG office, please. I want some advise on how to precede if this starts going south. Also, alert the _Ike_ battle group of what's going on."

"Aye, sir!"

...

Cameron rolled hard and put her F/A-18F into another hard turn. John had just began to come out of his G-LOC in the back seat, and this new turn sent him back down again. The cyborg regretted not telling him how to fight it, but as the turn was ten Gs, he would have passed back out anyway. She kept turning hard, though, and felt something pop in the airframe of her jet.

She had to get Wiley off her tail, had to throw him somehow. If she did not, he would finally get an angle on them and shoot them down. But if she kept putting ten or more Gs on John for too long it would kill him, turning his brain into the consistency of oat meal. Cameron could handle it, but John's frail biological body could not. The airplane couldn't either. Not much more. Too many turns like this and something important would come off.

Just putting her brakes out in an attempt to get him ahead of her was idiotic. It would kill her energy and he would have plenty of time to gun them down. Movie tactics never worked. But this twisting and turning had to stop. She had to find the advantage.

She cross-controlled, shoving the stick right and stomping the left rudder pedal. The Rhino twisted awkwardly in the sky and finally flipped on its corners. She ended up upside down and almost ninety degrees from her previous heading. She rolled upright as she turned to follow Wiley's plane with her eyes. Her had not copied her maneuver, but was turning into her to continue his pursuit. She threw the stick over again and turned her own nose on to him. His muzzle flashed and she twisted around the stream of twenty millimeter tracers that swept past. Seconds later, he thundered by her. She went to afterburner and pulled into a vertical loop. He pulled to match her, but she had a head start and managed to come over the top faster than he could.

For a second, the boresight of her HUD was over him. The AiM-9 Sidewinder she had selected was groaning urgently in her ear that it saw him. It wasn't much of a shot but she loosed it. The weapon came off the rail, corkscrewing through the sky, and it lost him. The missile couldn't make the turn to hit him and passed in the wake of his fighter without him even launching a flare. Cameron lost sight of the other terminator as he flashed beneath her nose, too far off-angle to make a shot with his gun.

As she continued her loop downward, she realized that she needed John badly. He could help with her situational awareness by helping track Wiley. Plus, his helmet sight would allow her to fire the single missile she had left from a greater number of angles. She could not miss again.

Looking upward as she came out of the loop, she spotted him again diving down on her. She rolled left and pulled hard, offsetting the pass so that he could not use his gun. He turned to follow her but she was by him again before he could take a shot. Throwing the fighter the other way, she again reefed the Rhino into a blood-draining curve. The flight computer dropped the flaps into combat position to help her maintain lift during her turn. Her energy was already running out again. She couldn't get on him. He passed behind her again, once more unable to get a decent shot. She reversed into him and went for her afterburners again.

They were perpendicular to the horizon now, canopy to canopy at a mile apart. They both pulled hard into each other and crossed with neither at the advantage. They repeated the maneuver again to the same effect. Cameron identified this situation as horizontal scissors, where the two aircraft continued to cross each other without being able to take a shot.

They crossed a few more times, and Cameron's speed was so low she was just barely flying. She would have had Wiley and he knew it. In the scissors, the aircraft that could bleed energy the fastest would win it. But when they crossed for the last time, he lit his burners and went vertical and over the top of her. Cameron couldn't follow. She had to dump the nose to regain some speed before she could maneuver again. Wiley was separating, going out wide while she wallowed just above the stall line. In a moment or two, he would have good speed again and could turn back on her and shoot her down unless she got some maneuvering energy. She buried the nose and dove for the clouds.

Movement in the rearview mirror caught her attention. John was waking up! "John? John!" She switched the seeker mode to JHMCS slave.

"What," he groaned groggily.

"Wake up, John," she said as she gently ruddered the airplane towards Wiley's curving fighter.

"_Minimum speed_," the flight computer voice continued its litany of urgent warning, "_Minimum speed_…"

"Yeah?"

"John, I need you to look to the left," she told him firmly, "can you do that?"

"_Minimum speed_…"

There was a long pause as his head lolled up, "my head hurts."

"I know," Cameron said, "but you have to look out to our left. Do you see that tiny spot out there, the speck?"

"_Minimum speed_…"

Cameron saw Wiley begin to turn back in for them. She was gambling everything on this. If they failed, they died. "Yes, I see him. There's a noise in my ear."

He was referring to the Sidewinder's seeker tone. She heard it too, getting stronger as he turned his head. "That's good, John. Can I shoot him?"

"I don't know," he was more awake now.

"_Minimum speed_…"

He wasn't sure of the symbology. "Like tic-tac-toe, John. X or O?" The angle was getting close. Wiley's gun pipper must be hovering right over them. He was almost in perfect position to fire, and Cameron had no spare speed to respond with.

"O," he said confidently. The Sidewinder was tracking Wiley's plane, its tone was loud and urgent. Cameron pressed the pickle switch.

The last missile shot off the port wing rail and immediately made a hard curve to the left, right for Wiley. The infiltrator broke hard as he saw the missile coming, but the shot was too close, and the missile was too fast. It ignored his flares and bored in directly for him. The missile had a hot plan view of the F/A-18's belly and detonated close aboard between the engines. The Sidewinder warhead spewed hot fragments in a lethal cone at its target, and the belly of the navy fighter was shredded. The shrapnel tore into the engines and the two turbofans rapidly began to self destruct. There was a sudden conflagration that hit the fuel tanks, and the Navy jet exploded in a fiery flash.

Cameron didn't have much time to acknowledge their victory. She returned to the task of getting her plane flying again. She pushed the stick forward and began a dive to regain speed.

John was fully awake now, his eyes watching the falling debris. "We did it?" He could hardly believe that they succeeded. Wiley was dead. No more Skynet…

No more Skynet! "Yeehaw!"

Cameron got them up to a comfortable speed and leveled out her dive just above the cloud deck and turned them west. Beneath her oxygen mask, she was allowing herself a smile. And not a wisp of one. This was a real, full-on smile.

Mission successful.

"Gypsy 207, this is _Port Royal_. How do you read, over?"

Cameron answered. "_Port Royal_, 207, go ahead." There was no sense in disguising her voice. They had been discovered, and the caller wasn't being aggressive.

"207, glad to hear your voice. We know what happened. Is Wiley down?"

"Confirmed. We just splashed him. Heading back west."

"Roger that, 207. Nice work."

...

Fifteen minutes later, the Oceana Ops center had gotten the full report. "Looks like your people managed to do their job, Agent Hart," Fuller told Sarah, "It's a shame they couldn't get there in time to save the other pilot, but I cannot imagine the backlash from one of our pilots shooting down a Russian bomber unprovoked."

Sarah wasn't thinking about that now. She was just glad her son was going to be okay. And she couldn't believe it. The nightmare that she had been since 1984 was over. No more Skynet. No more war. Now what? She never thought she would see this day. She looked over at Derek, and his eyes met hers. He was thinking the same thing. _What do I do with myself now?_

"Think the Dodgers will make the post-season this year? I heard they picked up Greg Maddux from the Cubs."

Sarah shrugged, and with a smile she said "Who? Sorry, I don't follow baseball."

"He's…"

"I don't follow baseball."

"Right," the grizzled resistance fighter smirked, already thinking about how soon they could get home so that he could go to a game. Maybe John would come. Uncles took their nephews to baseball games, right?

"Well, admiral," Sarah was about to dismiss herself and Derek when the door opened again. A young man in peanut-butters walked in, his garrison cap tucked into his belt. He had black hair and piercing blue eyes. His right collar tab showed the gold leaf of a Lieutenant Commander. The left had a device that Sarah was not familiar with. It looked like a belt buckle between two olive branches. Cameron had told her what it was called before they started this mission, but she couldn't remember.

"Shit," Derek grunted to her, "that's a mill rinde. He's a JAG officer."

"Admiral, I got a call you needed me."

"Mr. Forrester, yes," Fuller said, "we had an interesting situation develop and resolve itself just about twenty minutes ago." He gestured to Sarah and Derek. "This is Special Agent Hart and Special Agent Kimmer from NCIS." Forrester shook their hands. Derek he was politely curt with. However, his eyes lingered on Sarah, searching her face for a few extra moments. His gaze made her nervous, and she tried hard not to show it. Forrester continued, "We had a pilot go rogue, part of some plot to put the US and Russia at war. NCIS had some people undercover, they stole an airplane and the gear from these two officers from Strike Fighter Thirty-Two," he pointed out Kitty and Fungus, now in a corner conferring with Hawk and Morgs. "They had to shoot him down."

Forrester gave it some thought, "that would fall under treason, admiral. Have you recovered him, yet?"

"No," Fuller replied, "from what I've been told, there was no way he could have survived."

"That's a shame," the JAG shook his head, "how will we ever know his motivation."

"NCIS suspects some extremist group, isn't that right, Agent Hart?"

Sarah looked up, "um, yes, that's correct."

"Which one?" Forrester asked, his eyes were searching her face again, and she tried not to look into them.

"Um," Sarah thought for a second and came up with a name, "The American Patriotic Brotherhood, I think. It's a small west coast group."

Forrester nodded, "I remember the US Air Force was afraid that this very thing had happened with a fully armed A-10 that went missing in the late 90's. Ends up it crashed into the side of a mountain with no warning. Pilot error. How long had you been tracking this man?"

"We started following his movements as soon as there were indications that he was part of this group."

The JAG nodded thoughtfully. "Why weren't we informed?"

"We were only recently able to discover his intentions," Sarah said. At least this time she could speak truthfully, "there wasn't time to tell anyone else. Not if we were to stop it in time."

"I see," the thoughtful nod again, "Good enough. Admiral, if I can talk with you a second, I can tell you some basic thoughts that I have for proceeding from here. I'm sure NCIS has a plan to take down this group now that they've managed to pull this stunt off?"

"Huh? Oh, yes, we do," Sarah assured.

"Good, excuse us for a few minutes," the JAG officer and the Admiral stepped aside and began to talk. Sarah watched them, and turned away.

"I don't like that," Derek said, "did you see the way he was looking at you?"

"Yes, I know. I hope he just thinks I'm cute."

"I hope."

"Excuse me, ma'am?" Another voice said softly. The two of them turned to see a small, shapely Asian girl with a huge bun and thick-lens glasses standing near them. She was making an effort to be quiet. "I'm Airman Jennifer Chung. I couldn't help but notice, you kinda look like him."

Sarah almost blanched. So _this_ was the girl John had been crushing over these last several days. "Excuse me?"

"You look like the Petty Officer, like John," she glanced at Derek, "you both do a little bit. You're not his boss are you? You're his mom."

Sarah threw a look over her shoulder at Forrester, who was talking with the admiral. He noticed her glance and smiled at her. The smile was not warm. Sarah turned back to Chung, "how can you tell that?"

"He's like you. Intense like you," Chung saw the change in her face, "I promise I won't tell. I like him a lot. He's a nice guy. It's true isn't it, what the robot woman said? About the future?"

"Depends on what she told you," Sarah shrugged, "with any luck, it's not true anymore. We might have stopped it today."

"I hope so."

"Me, too."

"Excuse me, Agent Hart?" Forrester called as he walked over.

"Commander Forrester?"

His eyes were still hard on her, "I'm glad that your operation was a success. I would like at some point to know what details of the operation you can tell me, if any. There are a significant number of repercussions to follow. I'd also like to know more about this extremist group. I try to keep appraised of all the homegrown terror groups, and this one is new to me."

"As soon as I get back to my office, if I remember I'll send you all our information on it," Sarah reassured him. Wiley had now been dead for a half hour and they had not managed to escape yet. And Forrester was still looking at her like that. "Is there something wrong?"

The Navy lawyer shook his head, "No, not really. It's just… your face is familiar to me for some reason and I don't know why. I don't mean anything by it. Sorry."

"No problem," Sarah nodded and smiled at him, "I guess we're going to head out. I'll send you that info when I can. Do you have an e-mail address I can use?"

"As a matter of fact," Forrester dug into his wallet, "I do. He offered her a business card and she took it.

"Thanks," Sarah smiled and began to back away. A few steps and she turned. Derek joined her and they made for the door.

"Hold it!" Forrester called out just as she reached for the door handle. Sarah looked at him, "I know who you are! Admiral, that isn't an NCIS Agent! That's Sarah Connor! She's a terrorist!"

"Arrest her!" Fuller shouted, and the entire room began to fall upon them. The marine sentries near then door jumped at them both. Derek managed to get his down with a knee to the stomach. Sarah punched hers in the jaw. Not enough, her wrapped his arms around her waist and tackled her to the floor. Derek turned for the door, but an enlisted sailor grabbed him by the jacket and struggle for better grip. He landed a palm hard on the sailor's nose, but he couldn't get loose quickly enough. The marine he had kneed was recovered, and took him down, pressing his head into the carpet.

He and Sarah were face to face with knees in their backs and people sitting on their legs. Their wrists were being bound by handcuffs.

Admiral Fuller shouted over the din, "Call _Port Royal_. Have them shoot down that fighter!"

"No!" Sarah screamed. They were going to kill her son.

...

They were maybe five miles off the beaches of North Carolina when the radar warning receiver lit up with a pulsing strobe. Cameron looked down at it. The cruiser behind them had lit them up with its radar. "This isn't good," she said.

...

"Locked on 207," the radar operator told the captain and the TAO, "we're tracking."

"Weps?" the captain asked his weapons officer.

"Weapons are hot. Ready to fire, sir."

"Fire!"

"Aye, sir. SAMs away!" he flipped the plastic cover for one of the forward vertical launch cells and depressed the firing button. On the bow just ahead of the blocky superstructure an RIM-161 Standard Missile 3 burst out of the Mark 41 vertical launch system riding a pillar of flame and smoke.

...

The RWR started blaring at them with terrible urgency now, a two-tone warble that sent ice riding through John. "What the hell is that," he nearly screamed.

"Trouble," Cameron replied as she rolled the fighter into a break turn and dropped some chaff to perhaps throw off the radar. No avail, the AEGIS radar maintained a solid lock on them. She flipped the electronic countermeasures on and leveled their flight, now heading dead east. They were a half-mile from the beach. She needed more room, so she lit her afterburners and started a gentle climb.

"A navy cruiser has fired a surface-to-air missile at us. Its forty-five miles behind us. We don't have long. I've got to get inland or we'll be too easy to find."

"What are you talking about Cameron?"

"If we land in the sea, it will be easy for them to find us and capture us. We need terrain to escape."

"You're going to ditch us?" John was really scared now.

"No," the cycborg replied matter-of-factly, "we're going to eject."

"Eject? Can't we evade that missile? Can't we out-fly it?"

Cameron shook her head, "if I'm right, they fired an SM-3 at us. The SM-3 has a range of about two hundred seventy miles and a top speed of fifty-two hundred miles an hour. I will admit, this one is moving more slowly, but we can't get away from it."

"Cameron…"

"Listen to reason, John," she said calmly, "the Navy used the SM-3 once to shoot down a satellite. We don't have the fuel left to evade it. I need everything we've got just to get us inland. Besides, we've been made. Where do you think we're going to land a stolen Navy fighter plane?"

John thought for a second, but she was right, there was no place to go. They had to abandon the aircraft. He took a deep breath of the soggy, rubber-tasting air he had been breathing for the past hour now. He let it out raggedy. "Okay, just tell me when."

Cameron glanced down at the RWR. The missile was closing fast. By her reckoning, they had penetrated at least ten miles into the Carolina shore. They had about fifteen seconds left. "We have to go. Tighten your restraints and lock your arms across your chest," she told him. He did so and she reached down and yanked the canopy jettison lever.

All of a sudden there was a vast and powerful rush of air as the canopy frame disappeared from over them. The force of it pushed John back into his seat and threatened to pull his arms loose. He felt his heels slam into the ejection seat as a safety mechanism yanked on the garters around his shin.

The visor was protecting his eyes from the blast of the wind, but he looked forward to try to see Cameron's face in the mirror. The canopy had taken that with it. His cyborg protector reached down and gripped the ejection seat levers. She pulled them with a hard yank.

"Cameron…" he tried to say, but he was interrupted by a shotgun force. He looked down between his knees as the cockpit, the airplane, and Cameron sank from his view. Then his sight shrank to nothing and darkness overtook him.

**TO BE CONTINUED…**

[drum beat included]


End file.
